A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by self-gravity. [1] The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night; their immense distances from Earth …

6 days ago · A star is any massive self-luminous celestial body of gas that shines by radiation derived from its internal energy sources. Of the tens of billions of trillions of stars in the observable universe, …

May 2, 2025 · A star’s gas provides its fuel, and its mass determines how rapidly it runs through its supply, with lower-mass stars burning longer, dimmer, and cooler than very massive stars.

May 8, 2025 · How does a star work? How do they form, live, and eventually die? Learn more about these distant objects and their major importance in the universe.

These large, swelling stars are known as red giants. But there are different ways a star’s life can end, and its fate depends on how massive the star is.

Jan 4, 2021 · It's easy enough to say what a star is: one of those bright pointy things that twinkle in the night sky. But the actual definition of a star is as rich and colorful as the stars themselves.

5 days ago · The simplest way to describe a star is that it is a great ball of fire, but it is more complicated than that. A star is a giant ball of hydrogen turning into helium through nuclear fusion.

Where Do Stars Come From? Every star forms in a huge cloud of gas and dust. Over time, gravity causes the cloud to contract, drawing the gas closer and closer together. As more gas accumulates …

If you have read How the Sun Works, you already know a lot about the nature of Earth's nearest star. As you read the following pages, you'll find out even more about what you can see in the night sky.

Star birth can take millions of years and create families of stars. Astronomers see examples of star formation in nebulae throughout our own Milky Way Galaxy and in many other galaxies.