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 ...

Before there was Earth, there was chemistry. In the unimaginable cold, dark clouds where stars and planets are born, carbon molecules assemble into more complex forms—starting a chemical journey that ...

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 ...