![[img]](/images/sml_cmi_logo.png){kind=logo}
exploding stars young universe
Readers’ comments
A lot of assumptions there, but false ones. No matter what cosmogony you hold, there are more light years than years. Under the big bang view, the cosmic microwave background radiation is almost uniform. This would require enough time for the different regions of space to equilibrate by energy flowing from hot regions to cool ones. The fastest this could happen is the speed of light (radiative heat transfer). But the big bang allows only about 14 billion years, while the distances are about 10 times that. If we take your assumption of one light year per year at all times, 14 billion light years would be the maximum distance over which electromagnetic radiation could have equilibrated the temperature, a ‘horizon’. But as this is about 10 times too small, which constitutes the well known horizon problem—a light-travel problem for the big bang.
Yes, that is a link to our own site. But if you care to make just one or two more mouse clicks, you would find that the article was written by a Ph.D. astronomer/astrophysicist, and provides primary sources.
Mat H., United Kingdom, 5 October 2012
I would be very interested in how the creationists actually derive the time scales that are mentioned in this article.
Dr Jonathan Sarfati replies: The original paper by Davies (Ref. 1) should explain that. Mine was a layman’s summary of that.
MH: Being a physicist myself, I think that it is important to be able to derive things like time scales from the governing equations.
JS: As a physical chemist myself, I agree. But there is a time for that, just not here; this was an article for our family magazine. We have other articles that provide those things, e.g. many of the articles linked in 101 evidences for a young age of the earth and the universe.
MH: Another thing that you could possibly do is given the time scales that you propose what it would mean for the actual physics inside the star itself. That would be another way to test your timescales.
JS: A different issue though. We can’t cover everything in one article ;) But check out Age of the Sun.
MH: Another problem you have is the formation of stars to begin with, I have a feeling that this process will take a tad longer than the life of the universe as you propose it does.
JS: Ah, but this presupposes an evolutionary origin of stars in the first place. This has enormous problems: e.g. the proposed gas clouds are too hot, diffuse, and magnetic to collapse into a star. The problems are so great that many evolutionary theories need to rely on pre-existing stars to explain star formation. For example, a supernova (massive exploding star) to provide a shock wave, or molecules to radiate heat which under the faulty theory of stellar nucleosynthesis require stars to make the heavier elements. But this of course doesn’t explain the formation of the first stars. Further, we are missing any evidence of these hypothetical first metal-poor “population III” stars—see Stellar evolution and the problem of the ‘first’ stars. Abraham Loeb, of Harvard’s Center for Astrophysics, says:The truth is that we don’t understand star formation at a fundamental level. (cited in Stars could not have come from the ‘big bang’).
MH: To J. Sarfati—the comments that the gentleman made were of a definition only, so technically there was no assumptions within his statement. The horizon problem has a solution within inflatory theory and I also believe that the varible speed of light model has its own solution to the horizon problem.
JS: More likely, inflation is a fudge factor to try to explain away the horizon problem for the big bang. But as the cited article documents, there is no known physical way either to start it or to stop it. A large number of secular critics of the big bang have pointed out:But the big bang theory can’t survive without these fudge factors. Without the hypothetical inflation field, the big bang does not predict the smooth, isotropic cosmic background radiation that is observed, because there would be no way for parts of the universe that are now more than a few degrees away in the sky to come to the same temperature and thus emit the same amount of microwave radiation. … Inflation requires a density 20 times larger than that implied by big bang nucleosynthesis, the theory’s explanation of the origin of the light elements.
Michael F., United States, 14 January 2013
I read a new article about a star known as the Methuselah Star aka HD 140283, which scientist just dated to 13 billion years old by best estimates, and it’s still shinning. Just thought you might want to write an article about how that age is wrong.
Hi again Michael [a persistent critic of various articles],
The ‘dating’ of the star this relies on assumptions about its initial composition, in turn based on theories of stellar evolution. My response on the age of the sun might help when it comes to relating helium content to age. About stellar evolutionary theories in general, creationist astronomer Dr Danny Faulkner says:
Stars are not very complex, and so-called ‘stellar evolution’ (though I don’t necessarily accept all of it) is a different critter from biological evolution. So I don’t have a problem with the idea that a cloud of gas, created initially by God in a special unstable condition, or compressed by a shock wave from a nearby exploding star, might collapse under its own gravity and start to heat up to form a new star.
But the problem has always been the formation of the first stars, because gas clouds are too hot and diffuse to collapse, due to repulsion from gas pressure and magnetic fields, and the slow speed of the star contrary to conservation of angular momentum (see Solar system origin: Nebular hypothesis and this off-site article by a Ph.D. astrophysicist, Blue Stars Confirm Recent Creation). Current theories involve compression by supernovae or cooling by heat radiation from dust granules, but according to evolutionary theories, they require pre-existing stars (see Refuting Evolution, ch. 7). Neil deGrasse Tyson, evolutionary astrophysicist and fanatical antitheist, admits:
Not all gas clouds in the Milky Way can form stars at all times. More often than not, the cloud is confused about what to do next. Actually, astrophysicists are the confused ones here. We know the cloud wants to collapse under its own weight to make one or more stars. But rotation as well as turbulent motion within the cloud work against that fate. So, too, does the ordinary gas pressure you learned about in high-school chemistry class. Galactic magnetic fields also fight collapse: they penetrate the cloud and latch onto any free-roaming charged particles contained therein,restricting the ways in which the cloud will respond to its self-gravity. The scary part is that if none of us knew in advance that stars exist, front line research would offer plenty of convincing reasons for why stars could never form. (Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, p. 187, W. W. Norton & Company, 2007).
I strongly recommend our new DVD Our Created Stars and Galaxies.
This star is only 186 light-years from earth. In case you have an issue with starlight from further away, chapter 5 of the Creation Answers Book should help. It covers:
- How can we see distant stars in a young universe?
- If the universe is young and it takes millions of years for light to get to us from many stars, how can we see them?
- Did God create light in transit?
- Was the speed of light faster in the past?
- Does this have anything to do with the ‘big bang’?
And even has a study guide ;)
Jason L., United States, 11 June 2012
Please do not add references that redirect to your own article. A light year is yes a measurement of distance not time but it is the distance light travels in a year. Therefore light from a nova lets say 100,000 light years away took 100,000 years to reach us.