Has anyone ever SEEN a star being born?

Question

I read in a book the other day How a star forms. Just wondering if they (THEY) have ever seen one in formation?

Answer 1

Take a look at these images from Hubble:

http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=...

Answer 2

well we have seen some relatively young stars(about 100 years old) they seem to compliment our theory's of star formation. Star birth is Gruelingly long process for humans concept of time. 1,000 years is the equivalent of a month to a star so with these factors put into place we haven't seen a nebula collapse but we've seen up to a proto-star

Answer 3

Actually, I don't think we would be able to "see" the moment that fusion starts anyway , even if we were looking as that happens deep within and  it takes a photon approximately 100,000 to 200,000 years to reach the surface! And fusion IS what makes a star a star by most accounts.

Just saying;)

http://science.howstuffworks.com/sun2.ht...

Answer 4

Well accuatuly...you can't see a star being born from Earth, it is just impossible. On the other hand, you can see one being born if you are in Space, it is very rare though to see it from space though. Hope I helped.

Answer 5

Excellent answers.  btw, so often I hear people suggesting that because we haven't actually observed a star being born, or because we haven't actually seen a critter evolving into another critter, then we can't know that's how it works.  All I know to tell them is I haven't actually seen a mountain being formed, but I'm pretty sure the geologists have got it right.  Ditto with the stars and the critters.

Answer 6

Since it takes many millions of years to happen, we haven't seen one go through all the stages.  However, we've caught stars forming at different points, so we've seen the clouds they form from, the accretion disks they form, the jets they form as matter falls in, the gas and dust surrounding the star that the planets form from, and the final result - a solar system like our own.

Answer 7

Agree with Beachbum.

I've never witnessed a baby developing all the way from conception to birth, but I'm pretty sure that the biologists have it right, and the Stork  and Cabbage Patch "theories" are wrong.

Answer 8

Kind of sure.

There are many pictures of stellar nurseries (see link below).  These are areas where new stars are forming.

However, realize that a star forms over the course of thousands or millions of years.  We have only been seriously watching the skies for a few hundred years.  So spotting the "moment" when a star turns on would be rare (not sure we have ever identified that happening).

Answer 9

The birth of a star takes a long time.  

We have seen many stars that are on the verge of being born (proto-stars, T Tauri stars...) and we have seen stars that had just been born (ZAMS) and every thing in between.

If we could assemble all these observations in a sequence and ask "what is the exact moment that we should call The Birth?" then someone would answer something like:  it is between observation 410 and 411.

Or, more likely, it is the process from observation 402 to observation 436.

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The numbers are arbitrary, just for and example.