Every year brings new scientific discoveries that shed light on the past. The Institute for Creation Research is dedicated to the study of origins from a biblical perspective, and ICR News has compiled what it considers to be the top findings related to origin studies from 2010. This article examines astronomy, and will be followed by a feature on breakthroughs on the genome.

Comets have fascinated their viewers throughout human history. Where did they come from? What are they made of? How did they start orbiting the sun? How old are they?

Astronomers generally believe that Mars was formed billions of years ago. About 96 percent of the Red Planet's atmosphere is composed of carbon dioxide.¹ NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander began transmitting detailed data about the planet's atmosphere in 2008, and a recent analysis of the information has revealed that its atmosphere actually looks young.

Stephen Hawking, leading cosmologist and recently retired Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, has co-authored a new book, The Grand Design. In it, he claims that the universe did not need God to create it.

Most cosmological models presume that when astronomers look at the objects most distant from earth, they are actually looking back in time. They aren't quite sure how galaxies first formed by natural processes, but they assume that "early" galaxies would look quite different from present-day ones. Thus, they were shocked to find fully matured galaxies so far away from so "long ago."