Starlight problem

The so-called "starlight problem", or "starlight travel-time problem" is an apparent problem for the young-Earth creationist argument that the universe is only 6,000 years old, which age is based primarily on the Genesis narrative. The problem is that if the universe is only 6,000 years old, there has not been enough time for light from stars in the distant reaches of the universe to reach Earth.

However, light travel time is also a problem for the Big Bang Theory.

The size of the universe

Using parallax calculations, the Milky Way galaxy alone can be directly observed to have a diameter of approximately 80-100,000 light years. Calculations based on the observed brightness of supernovas of known energy output can determine the distance to more distant objects. The most distant object known is a star cluster approximately thirteen billion light-years away from Earth, observed by the Hubble telescope using gravitational lensing.

Although creationists have at times disputed the size of the universe, virtually none propose that it is less than 12,000 light years across.

Solutions to the problem

Several solutions have been proposed by creationists to explain how a young universe may be reconciled with these observations.

They also point out that there is a logical fallacy in the argument, as the observation that many stars are millions of light years away is one of distance, not time. No matter how reasonable, it is a deduction, not an observation, that the starlight from stars millions of light years away would have required millions of years to reach Earth.

Light created in transit

Some creationists have proposed that the light we see from stars more than 6,000 light years away was not emitted by those stars, but was created 'in transit' by God. However, most creationists reject this explanation, as the light contains images of events that would therefore never have actually happened, including super nova, meaning that we are seeing an image of a start exploding, but a star that never existed. This would make the creator a deceiver.

Moon-Spencer theory

Some creationists promoted an idea by Parry Moon and Domina Spencer that light somehow takes a shortcut through "Riemannian Space", taking no more than 15 light years to reach Earth from the outer limits of the universe. However, this idea never really caught on and appears to no longer have adherents.

Decrease in the speed of light

Barry Setterfield

Creationist Barry Setterfield has proposed that the speed of light was faster in the past. This idea initially found wide acceptance by creationists, but is now widely rejected, although some still hold to the idea.

One criticism of it by anticreationists was that if the speed of light had changed, we should see the difference in the Fine Structure Constant as measured by nearby stars versus distant stars, but this was not observed. Yet in 1999, John Webb, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues reported astronomical observations suggesting that the value of the fine-structure constant may indeed have changed. They subsequently published this in Physical Review Letters. However, although this showed that mainstream scientists are prepared to entertain the idea of a change in the speed of light when it suits them, the size of the change did not provide specific support for Setterfield's idea.

In addition, there were other problems with the theory, leading most creationists to drop the idea, although some credit it with stimulating further research.

Humphreys' model

In 1994 Dr. Russell Humphreys proposed a new cosmology that includes a bounded universe with a center and an edge, that God had created 6,000 years ago as a much smaller body than today, then stretched it out, making it much larger. In Humphreys' model, because the universe has a center and an edge (unlike the unbounded model of the Big Bang universe), the center of the universe is also the center of a gravity well, meaning that gravity is stronger at the center of the universe than at the edge.

As gravity can affect the rate at which time passes, he calculated that while the six days of creation week were passing on Earth, billions of years' of time was passing at the edge of the universe. According to this idea, the Biblical references to time are according to an observer (real or imaginary) on Earth, so ages are given in "Earth time".

This model receives cautious but wide support among creationists.

Time dilation field

Dr. John Hartnett, a creationist physicist, spurred by Humphreys' model, has proposed an alternative time dilation model, by theorizing the Earth was trapped in a time-dilation field caused by extremely strong gravitation during the first few days of creation, from Earth's point of view, while billions of years passed for the rest of the universe. He attributes the field, its removal and the continued balance in our solar system (after the field was removed) to divine intervention.

Starlight Problem for the Big Bang Theory

Despite anticreationists using the Starlight Problem in arguing against young-Earth creationism, the Big Bang Theory has its own light travel problem, known as the horizon problem.

The Big Bang model proposes that the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) would have varied considerably from place to place early in the universe, yet because the speed at which this radiation can disperse from hotter to colder parts of the universe is limited by the speed of light, there has not been enough time for the radiation to even out, yet observations today show it to be extremely uniform. (though with some minor fluctuations ).

The problem is this: even assuming the big bang timescale, there has not been enough time for light to travel between widely separated regions of space. So, how can the different regions of the current CMB have such precisely uniform temperatures if they have never communicated with each other? This is a light-travel–time problem.

Bibliography

• Inconstant constant? Physical Review Letters 091301 (9th August 2001)</ref>
• Amos, Jonathan, Hubble sees 'most distant object', BBC News, 15th February, 2004.
• Batten, Don, Catchpoole, David, Sarfati, Jonathan, Wieland, Carl, How can we see distant stars in a young universe?, chapter 5 of The Creation Answers Book, 2007.
• Fangrad, Richard, The media spin on the creationists (Creation Ministries International), 14th November, 2007.
• Hartnett, John C., A new cosmology: solution to the starlight travel time problem, Journal of Creation 17(2):98–102, August 2003. HTML PDF
• Humphreys, D. Russell, Starlight and Time, Master Books, 1994, ISBN 0-89051-202-7.
• Lisle, Jason, Light-travel time: a problem for the big bang, Creation 25(4):48–49, September 2003.
• Norman, T.G. and Setterfield, B., The Atomic Constants, Light and Time, SRI International Invited Research Report, Menlo Park, 1986.
• Sarfati, Jonathan, Have fundamental constants changed, and what would it prove? 22nd August, 2001 (Creation Ministries International).
• Wieland, Carl, Speed of light slowing down after all?, 9th August 2002 (Creation Ministries International).