A Star Field is Born

A representation of a “star nursery”–absolutely stunning! Who wouldn’t want to get a little closer to view what must be an inspiring sight?

Celestron is a good brand to start with. They make telescopes from beginner to expert. Try Celestron.com.

First priority is to go out and buy Nightwatch by Terry Dickinson. It is the absolute BEST for beginner to intermediate astronomers. $23 at Amazon.
It will give you the exact info you need to make a wise purchase and the pictures are great also!
I recommend this book to everyone starting out.

I would suggest that Kent take a good beginning astronomy course at a local (accredited) university. He might learn something. Such divergent fields as spectography, chemistry, geometry and trigonometry, etc. all come together in astronomy to help us understand what we are seeing in the world around us.
Yes, Kent, we can indeed prove that this is from 500 light years away, even using primitive trigonometric techniques. As for whether or not star birth is a theory, well, it certainly is, but not in the way you inappropriately use the term. In science, theory is not a “wild guess,” as you use the term, but is a well-developed body of testable ideas that have stood up under repeated testing and examination.
And yes, we do indeed continue to examine and test. But unless the laws of physics do not extend beyond the solar system, and the laws of mathematics are only good here on earth, we have good reason to believe that star birth occurs, that this “stellar nursery” is approximately 500 light years away, and that astronomy is much more than the guesses of an ancient shepherd.
After all, you have a computer to type on. Is that “just a theory” as well? Or is the science that produced the computer just as relevant in other places?
Regards.

I likely do understand the trig techniques rather well. What makes things even better than in years past is that our technological precision and accuracy have increased far beyond what we had in years past when the best we could do was take observations from a single telescope at opposite points in the year. Simple triangulation of that sort used to be good only for about 300 light years or so when our ground-based telescopes were less refined. Even so, parallaxes for over 10000 such stars in that radius have been measured. But our telescopes in outer space and the ability we have to connect our observatories all over the world have increased the accuracy and range of this technique.
Furthermore, by spectrographic analysis we are able to determine the chemical composition of substances, as well as noting how hot a star burns. The temperature and composition of a star are directly related to its brightness.
Now even here on earth we know the principle that the further you are from a light source, the fainter it appears. So to find a star with a given light and chemical signature allows us to compare it with the 10000 or so stars in our 300 light-year radius and make a pretty accurate comparison.
The fact is that no one will never ever see a star being born — simply because we are not close enough and won’t live live long enough. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. We see the evidence of it, and if using what is known to explore what is unknown has any meaning (the basis of science itself), then we can make such claims with confidence. Nor does the fact that we can’t see an atom mean it doesn’t exist. We see what atoms do and atomic theory is well developed enough that chemistry is extremely reliable.
Kent really ought to get his terms straight, however. Theory does not mean “a guess” or even “a good guess” where science is concerned. Science often starts out with guesses — but we don’t report guesses as fact. Guesses are tested (as hypotheses), and hypotheses are either falsified or not. Those that are proven false are discarded. Those that are not proven false are usually retested time and time again. After a while, we find that there are some things we can rely on. The principles of astronomy are very reliable, and form a coherent body of knowledge.
A good course in any of the basic sciences would do wonders to clear up the misconceptions people have about science. Far too many people think they know what science is and does without ever having really studied it. Some faith-based ministries make claims about science and its motivations which simply are not true — and most any good science course would clear up most of those! But even without religious bias against science, a simple lack of education has caused many to mistake what science is and what it does, preferring to regard it with suspicion and possibly as an enemy. It isn’t, of course.
But what havoc is wrought when someone presumes to think that large body of knowledge should be able to be made understandable to the layman in a short article and in under five minutes (or else be made to claim that the knowledge doesn’t exist and is “only just a theory”)!

Kent, I would say you are absolutely right — if –
1. We could actually see *all* stars and nebulae individually, and
2. We knew where to look in all of the abundance of stellar nebulae at the right time.
3. Starbirth were quick. One moment there was not a star, just a point in a nebula where the gas was a bit more dense, and the next there was a glowing brilliant sun.
First, we don’t have technology to see everything, including what happens in a nebula. We know enough, but the dust necessarily obscures our view.
We have seen stars that appear to have been very recently born, however — stars brightly shining in a nebula with a small area of the nebula around them mostly clear of gas. How long ago these happened we don’t know, but some appear to be as young as a million years or so. Yes, remember, stars are a fusion reactor, so it generally takes a *long* time for them to burn out. A million-year old star is still very, very young.
As you note, we believe that star formation not only is occurring now, but has occurred in the past. Not too many years ago a supernova was spotted. It was determined that the supernova event was about 170,000 light years away, so it must have occurred 170,000 years ago. By the way, the light and radiation and even the progress of the explosion attested to the remarkable stability of known laws of physics. The explosion produced abundant amounts of short-lived heavy elements, which dissipated in the same half-life time intervals we already knew the element to possess.
So “new” stars in this cluster the article talks about being born “today” would really be born about 500 years ago. I agree.
But starbirth is not quite as quick as is the birth of a human, and may in fact take several years — or several hundreds or more. The material from which the star is made must undergo some kind of shock to coalesce, and even as it does, the fusion reactions involved may take years to become evident in such a manner as we can see. It may take a long time for the star to become luminescent enough. We might not be able to see the initial light from first fusion — in which case there might not be a startling and identifiable light signature of the new process. By the time we are able to see the light, the process will have been well underway. Physics does not allow a “poof, there it is” scenario.
Now the fact is that we do find stars out there that we have never, ever seen before. A star’s birth with would in fact show us a star we hadn’t observed. But seeing a “new” star is not proof that the star was just born. We don’t claim that — that would be just plain silly. As our instruments get better, we know we can see more. Seeing more now doesn’t mean it wasn’t there earlier.
While we are blessed by having several sites close by, we don’t have the resources to devote to looking at all of them, and certainly not always at the time we’d need to to witness the event (were it to be an instantaneous kind of thing with a flash of light sort of thing). Even so, the huge majority of starbirth would be occurring outside of our galaxy and local group in regions too far away for us to make out the individual stars.
Yes, Hubble has seen light out from 10 to 11 billion light years (the deep field photographs are astounding).
It found that in small pockets of space where we could not see any stars with our earth-based telescopes there were unimaginable numbers of galaxies out there. Just think about how small a field was looked at and how many galaxies there are in the photo. Then realize that some of those are at least a large as our own, and that if we have any idea of how large our own galaxy is (we do) then we understand how far back in time we are seeing. For the most part that far out we can’t see individual stars, and even if starbirth were instantaneous as you propose with a recognizable tell-tale light signature, we would be unable to separate it out from the rest of the galactic light being seen.
So I suppose we shall have to remember that our night sky contains about 9000 or so stars that are visible to our eyes under ideal conditions, and not everyone is looking for new ones.
Star birth occurs. Perhaps we will get lucky and witness a complete event (I think it unlikely), but even if we don’t it doesn’t undermine the fact that we see all stages of star development and age in the sky around us. We have good, solid evidence that starbirth occurs, and we see the youngest stars in these “stellar nurseries.” Why shouldn’t we believe what we are seeing or accept what physics tells us can and does occur?
(You don’t have to yield the floor, you know. And, BTW, I have a good idea that I know where you are coming from, having been there religiously and philosophically myself at one time.)
Regards,

i would like to here more about the 500 light years distance

I don’t see anything labeled here as New Star, Baby Star, Teen Star, Old Star. I don’t see any data to help know what stars are in the nebula, what stars are behind the nebula, what stars are in front of the nebula. The lens flare is so bad that you can’t tell what is close to a star.
Sure, it’s a beautiful picture, but it would have to be compared to several pictures of the same thing at different times of the year and over many years to show change in the movement of what we perceive to be gases. Seems like a lot of conjecture going on.
But if you don’t like the science “facts” of today, stick around; the “facts” will change tomorrow.

How about stars dieing? Has science actually ever witnessed a stars death?