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How a Star shines, and how it doesn’t. Looking up at the sky on a clear night, the view is typically one lit with millions of bright sparkling stars. While stars have been a fascination of astronomers for centuries—as charting constellations dates back to the time of the ancient Greeks—the composition of stars—what they are made of, what powers them and their lifecycle—is a reality that has only recently been noticed by scientists. For the most part scientific understanding of stars has been limited by available technology. As such, the answer to the question “what powers a star?” has only recently been made available. In order to provide some insight into this topic and further explore the lifecycle of the star, this examination considers what powers a star and how that power source eventually diminishes. By looking at this process, it is hoped a clearer understanding of the significance of stars in the sky will be discovered. Further it is hoped that by exploring this subject the reader will gain an intimate knowledge about the complexity of stars and how understanding their complexity is important to the larger scope of physics. With the discovery of quantum mechanics at the beginning of the nineteenth cen