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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
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Even for high-mass stars, the time it takes for a star to form from a molecular cloud is on the order of a million years (see Figs 5 and 6 of this paper). A human lifetime is essentially just a snapshot of this process; you're not really going to see a new star form over such timescales (unless you count supernovae as "new stars").
Also, all of the stars visible to the unaided eye are relatively close: only a few thousand light years away at most. All of the other stars in the milky way are too far away to see as anything more than a collective haze.