First, what is an ice age? It’s when the Earth has cold temperatures for a long time – millions to tens of millions of years – that lead to ice sheets and glaciers covering large areas of its surface.

Ancient volcanoes in the Arctic may have trapped Earth in repeated "Snowball Earth" freezes for 56 million years.

A Europe-wide collaboration has unveiled the longest continuous record of Earth’s climate and atmospheric conditions, ...

Mars is half the size of Earth, with one-tenth of our planet’s mass, and at the nearest point in its orbit is over 33 million miles away. Yet new research highlights the extraordinary influence the ...

Tiny crystals hidden inside an ancient bone forced scientists to redraw the timeline of a famous Homo juluensis tool site.

Throughout much of Earth's history, the climate has switched between periods of extreme heat and freezing cold. Cold, glacial periods are characterized by large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere, ...

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. How many ice ages has the Earth had, and could ...