what is a star as in a star in the sky? In layman terms?

Answer 1

extraterrestrial fire flies!

Answer 2

You mean like the sun???

Well a star is a giant ball of burning gas millions of miles away.
The star burns hydrogen, then helium, and other elements over its lifetime until the fusion process which supplies its fuel runs out and it either explodes like our sun, or implodes like a black hole.

ok now here is the lyrics to one of my favorite songs you might like also:
"They Might Be Giants - Why Does The Sun Shine (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas) Lyrics

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

Yo ho, it's hot
The sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on Earth there'd be no life
Without the light it gives

We need its light
We need its heat
We need its energy
Without the sun,
Without a doubt,
There'd be no you and me

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

The sun is hot

"It is so hot that everything on it is a gas. Iron, copper, aluminium, and many others."

The sun is large.

"If the sun were hollow, a million Earths could fit inside, and yet the sun is only a middle-sized star."

The sun is far away

"About ninety-three million miles away, and that's why it looks so small."

And even when it's out of sight, the sun shines night and day

The sun gives heat
The sun gives light
The sunlight that we see
The sunlight comes from our own sun's atomic energy

"Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom-smashing machine. The heat and light of the sun come from the nuclear reactions of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and helium."

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

Answer 3

Just like the Sun, it's a ball of hydrogen gas. It's powered by nuclear fusion. There are three main types--red giants, white dwarfs, and stars like our sun. When some of the largest stars die (burn out), they shrink on themselves to almost nothing, but keep their immense gravity--that's how black holes are believed to form. The sun is a star, it's just the one we happen to be orbiting. Galaxies are made up of millions, maybe billions of stars, and most galaxies are believed to have a black hole at the center, with the stars orbiting around it. The stars are created in nebulas, which are big gaseous areas, and they look like dusty areas in space, like the Crab Nebula or the Dumbbell Nebula. If you want pictures, go to NASA's website--they have the Hubbel's pictures of some of these.

Answer 4

Stars are suns from other solar systems.

Answer 5

It's just like the Sun, but very far away.

Answer 6

It is "the morning star" which translated into latin means LUCIFER.

Answer 7

its a big ball of gas.