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Everyone at some point in his or her lives has looked up and wondered about the tiny points of light flickering in the night sky. Stars have fascinated and intrigued humanity since pre-historic times and have played a role in our history and development as a race. Ancient sailors used the stars to navigate; calculating the movements of stars and other heavenly bodies was the driving force behind the development of mathematics, stars have played a major role in religion and mythology throughout human history.  This continued important role is self-evident from the daily horoscope section of any newspaper.

Nevertheless, what are stars? Most of us have an idea that stars are similar to our sun, but much, much further away. While this is true, it is only part of the story. Technically, what we see in the night sky are immense balls of gas (or more accurately, plasma) that are going through a thermonuclear reaction of fusing hydrogen to produce helium. The reason a star stays as a gigantic globe is due to the immense gravity involved that holds everything together and starts the nuclear fusion. As the star converts hydrogen to helium, it also releases huge amounts of energy as light and radiation. Once this light emitted by the star travels across the astronomical distances across the galaxy and arrives at Earth, we see it in the night sky as stars.

Obviously, this is a simplistic explanation of the majesty and complexity behind the formation, life cycle, and eventual death of a star. A simple query online will provide more detailed information on every aspect of the life cycle of a star among another astronomy related topic.