New research suggests “microlightning” exchanges among water droplets in Earth’s early atmosphere may have sparked the ...

The molecules may be remnants of fatty acids, which form cell membranes in Earth’s organisms, though they might have formed ...

But real lightning would have struck infrequently—and mostly in open ocean, where organic compounds would have quickly ...

While the presence of these molecules is not proof of ancient life on Mars, scientists say it shows we could detect chemical ...

The Mars Curiosity rover’s onboard mini-lab has helped confirm the existence of the largest organic molecules ever found on the Red Planet. The trio of long-chain compounds preserved in Martian soil ...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has detected the largest organic (carbon-containing) molecules ever found on the red planet. The ...

Fatty acids are organic acids with at least one carboxyl (-C(=O)OH, -COOH or -CO2H) group and a long carbon chain that can be joined by double bonds, as in unsaturated fatty acids, or single bonds ...

Far from Earth's hustle and bustle, in a hostile environment dominated by cold and a barely perceptible atmosphere, remnants of a distant past have been unearthed. These carbon chains rekindle ...

Scientists believe the long chains of molecules could be fragments of fatty acids, which are organic molecules that are ...