Carbon is often referred to as "the bedrock of life" because the element appears in all known life forms. This is because the sixth entry on the periodic table has the unique ability to form the ...

Analysis of organic compounds -- called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) -- extracted from the Ryugu asteroid and Murchison meteorite has found that certain PAHs likely formed in the cold areas ...

Chemists studying how life started often focus on how modern biopolymers like peptides and nucleic acids contributed, but modern biopolymers don't form easily without help from living organisms. A ...

Researchers may have figured out how a crucial ingredient that cells need to produce energy could form in deep space. Calculations and lab experiments suggest that glyceric acid can arise from ...

Deep within giant planets, helium may form stable compounds with other elements, a new study finds — something that was long thought never to happen in nature. Helium is second only to hydrogen as the ...