Blog

by Steve Risner

Last time, we discussed some of the processes that are believed to have occurred in order for our 93 billion light year wide universe to appear as it does today. We reviewed how after the Big Bang, there were no elements for a brief moment. Then, as protons and neutrons formed and electrons found themselves around these guys, we had the elements of hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium. These somehow condensed into huge balls of gas which ignited. Over time, they burned out and spewed the newly forged elements they had created out into space. These Population III stars have never been seen but are critical to the Big Bang origins myth. The new elements generated by these stars would condense and form Population II stars—stars with small amounts of metals in them. These would, over time, burn out and spew their contents out and stars with even higher metal content would be born. These are Population I stars. Our sun is a Pop I star.

We also touched on how quickly it seems, according to the story they tell, that galaxies formed after the Big Bang and how this contradicts the evidence they bring to the table. This really becomes a problem when we consider what some have claimed to have found in deep space—13-billion-year-old galaxies! Although some suggest as much as 100 million to a billion years went by before Pop III stars were formed, we have entire galaxies of Pop II and Pop I stars that would have allegedly formed before their predecessors were even formed. Some galaxies are over 13 billion years old. This means there was enough time for elements to form, then Pop III stars to form, burn, die, explode, and coalesce into other stars, then a huge gathering of stars to be connected gravitationally in less than a billion years, although some say it took a billion years for the process to even start! It’s inconceivable.

GN-z11 is a galaxy that’s supposed to be 13.4 billion years old and they have no issues with this huge galaxy being this old (keeping in mind it doesn’t have any Pop III stars, which means we had to go through all of the above mentioned processes before this galaxy could form). Describing stars in GN-z11, National Geographic says, “Those stars were very hot, very young, and very massive—the types of stars astronomers think existed in the early universe.” They are telling us about the stars in this galaxy like they know about them when they obviously don’t. You can see from this image of GN-z11 that, while information can be gleaned from it, they can hardly tell us with confidence what they are telling us.

A galaxy so large which existed so soon after the first stars began forming is a challenge to some current theoretical models of the formation of galaxies, according to spacetelescope.org on March 3, 2016. To further my point about Pop III stars not being found anywhere although they are the oldest type of star and necessary for the universe to exist in the Big Bang I will quote from Wikipedia: “The oldest observed stars, known as Population II, have very low metallicities; as subsequent generations of stars were born they became more metal-enriched, as the gaseous clouds from which they formed received the metal-rich dust manufactured by previous generations. As those stars died, they returned metal-enriched material to the interstellar medium via planetary nebulae and supernovae, enriching further the nebulae out of which the newer stars formed. These youngest stars, including the Sun, therefore have the highest metal content, and are known as Population I stars.”

I highlight this to show that, to date, no Pop III stars have been found. In fact, SMSS J031300.36-670839.3 is a star 13.6 billion years old and is a Pop II star. So this star was born out of the remnants of a Pop III (at best; possibly another Pop II star supernova remnant) star which didn’t exist until 100 million years or even a billion years after the Big Bang. It then took a million years or more for this star to form and, for some reason, it’s not burnt out yet. Our complex, spiral galaxy called the Milky Way is allegedly 13.6 billion years old. Isn’t that something? We can “look into the past” by seeing a 13.4-billion-year-old galaxy but we live in a galaxy that’s older than this.

All this star formation is still a thing of mystery to materialists (people who think nature and the material world is all there is and ever was). They will try to say it’s all been worked out, but adding in fudge factors and telling a story on paper is not the same as reality. Stars form, allegedly, from dust clouds. We see dust clouds in space. They are remarkably beautiful as you can see from the small sample below.

They frequently refer to some of these amazing places as “star nurseries” but this is story telling. The truth is, to a creationist like myself who builds their worldview and beliefs on origins on Scripture, whether stars can form in space is irrelevant. It makes no difference. But it’s critical to the humanist origins myth. Without star formation, they have nothing—quite literally. And we’ve never seen a star “turn on.” It’s wishful thinking at this point.

But nebulae are produced from star death—a supernova. They’re magnificent to look at but they cannot explain the origins of the first stars. In fact, they can’t really explain the origins of “young” stars either.

Some of the issues surrounding the birth of the original stars are discussed here at creation.com: “The process of star formation is assumed to begin with molecular gas clouds like those that are currently observed in the galaxies. The process is envisaged to be gradual, slow, and inefficient. However, present day molecular gas clouds have no relevance to the origin of the very first Population III stars because conditions soon after the big bang were greatly different from what exists now.”

Because they were first, Population III stars would not have formed by the same mechanisms that evolutionists use to explain the origin of Population I stars, which are observed today. There are a number of significant differences. First, evolutionists cannot invoke a supernova to trigger the gas cloud collapse. Supernovae did not occur until after Population III stars had formed and burned all their nuclear fuel. Second, there were no dust grains or heavy molecules in the primordial gas to assist with cloud condensation and cooling and form the first stars. (Evolutionists now believe that molecular hydrogen may have played a role, in spite of the fact that molecular hydrogen almost certainly requires a surface—i.e. dust grains—to form.) Thus, the story of star formation in stellar evolution theory begins with a process that astronomers cannot observe operating in nature today.

Once again, there is more to say on this, but I’ve run out of space for this installment. I hope it’s becoming clear that the story told by Big Bang believers isn’t as solid as we’re led to believe. In fact, it’s a great deal of guess work and storytelling with a fudge factor of 95% added in so the math works. And there simply hasn’t been enough time for all of this to happen. Not nearly.

God is the Star Breather. The Psalmist tells us the starry hosts were from the breath of God. These and the nebulae and all that we see in the heavens were created to proclaim His glory and, in truth, as wonderful and magnificent as the heavens appear to us and as great and vast as they are, they utterly fall short of the greatness of our Lord.

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