Without enough liquid water on the surface, a planet's atmosphere can become choked with carbon dioxide, raising temperatures ...

Scientists propose so-called land planets have a better chance at sustaining alien life than Earth-like water worlds.

Young, hot planets could soak up a lot of water into their core, with up to 10 times more water inside than on the surface of the planet.

Chemical clues in zircon crystals suggest the rock in which they formed came into contact with fresh water 4 billion years ago, when Earth was thought to be covered in ocean.

Peatlands, formed by ancient wetlands, store more carbon than the world's forests. But when they're drained for farming, they vent heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air.

Narrowing down the location of buried ice on Mars could help the space agency decided where to land its astronauts on future missions.

Astronomers are looking to a distant star system still in the planet-forming phase to understand how water came to be on Earth.

Water has made the Earth the planet that it is—a planet known for its blue oceans. Water shapes the land through erosion and is fundamental to Earth's ability to support life. But we have a hard ...

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently spotted some of the most compelling evidence yet of ancient water on Mars, in the form of rippled rocks shaped by waves. The ripples formed billions of years ago ...

Deep ocean water in the Antarctic is heating up and shrinking, with potentially far-reaching consequences for climate change and deep ocean ecosystems, according to a report.

A strange planet that's stymied astronomers for years has an "unusually shiny atmosphere" and could be home to large amounts of water vapor, scientists said in a study published Wednesday in the ...