I think one of the most amazing things we have learned in the centuries of the scientific pursuit of astronomy is that stars are born, they live out their lives, and that they die. That concept by itself is stunning: a process which takes billions of years can be understood, simply by knowing a few laws of physics and taking a look around. And look we do. We have fantastic tools to investigate the lives of stars, and one of the best is the Spitzer Space Telescope. Don't believe me? Then take a look at this stunner:
Spitzer took this gorgeous picture of the star forming region around the nearby star Rho Ophiuchi (just called Rho Oph for short). At 400 light years away, it's one of the closest places where stars are actively being born, and so it provides us a front-row seat to the process. However, the problem ...
