Hidden Creation

One of the excuses I've seen creationists use as to why astronomy can't possibly be right (and thus magic man done it) is that we've "never seen a star form". The response I gave noted that there's 2 primary reasons for this.

1) Unlike star deaths, star births aren't expected to be sudden and dramatic. Even for the most massive stars which collapse the fastest, this takes tens to hundreds of thousands of years. For the less massive stars, this can take even longer! It's not a sudden flick of a light switch were it's not glowing one moment and there the next. Rather, it's a slow process of heating.

2) Stars form behind curtains of dust and gas. Dust and gas block light. They're especially good at blocking light in the regions we really like to look, namely the visible region of the spectrum. However, we can somewhat peer into these nebulae by looking at longer wavelengths which are better able to get through.

Recently, this was spectacularly confirmed by the Spitzer telescope which peered into a dusty patch of sky around Rho Ophiuchi. If an image is taken in the visible part of the spectrum, it looks like the image on the left here.

It's definitely pretty. The stars around the area have wonderfully contrasting colors that make it a popular target in small scopes. But one of the defining characteristics of this area that's overlooked is the dark band near the center of the image. It's dark, boring, and there's not a whole lot going on there. At least not at first glance.

But what's really going on is the process of star formation! When Spitzer peels back the veil of dust and gas, dozens of high mass, young stars are found in the exact region that looks devoid! Some of the stars even have the large circumstellar disks still present.

A careful inspection of various regions in this and the other image released by Spitzer show many other features associated with newly forming stars: jets of material slamming into the cloud in which they're forming, causing bow shocks known as Herbig-Haro objects.

So the creationist canard that we "never see stars form" is a bit of a silly statement. It doesn't happen quickly, but through techniques and telescopes like Spitzer used, we can see frozen vestiges of star formation.

Note: The images above are the same scale and orientation.