What makes a star shine?

It’s a question we rarely give much thought; it just does. However, there is a scientific explanation for this commonplace phenomenon.

The sun, like every star, was created by the effect of gravity.

Originally, all the matter that makes up the sun was in the form of dust and gas floating in space. This dust was composed of many different elements, with the most prevalent being hydrogen.

Over time, the force of gravity caused the dust to lump together; the larger the lump became, the more dust it accumulated. These lumps continued to grow and connect, until a few billion years later a titanic mass was formed, called a proto-star.

Soon, the gravitational attraction of the proto-star bagan to pull its parts tighter and tighter together. As the proto-star became larger, the more powerful this pull became, thus the tighter it compacted.

This continued until the proto-star became so tightly packed that hydrogen atoms began to fuse with each other, releasing a blast of energy containing a new element, helium.

At this point the proto-star has become an actual star, crushing hydrogen into helium in an ongoing controlled explosion. The outward force of the explosion keeps the star from contracting too small, while the inward crush of gravity keeps it from blowing apart.

Once this equilibrium is reached, a star such as our own sun can stay balanced and shining for literally billions of years.

Ps. Our Sun is about halfway though its life and probably has about 5 billion years of hydrogen left to burn.