The remaining dust envelope surrounding the star heats up and glows brightly in the infrared part of the spectrum. At this point the visible light from the new star cannot penetrate the envelope. The properties and lifetime of the new star depend on the amount of gas that remains trapped. A star like our sun has a lifetime of about 10 billion years and is just middle-aged, with another five billion years or so left. Many stars are born in the beautiful Orion Nebula .
Stars form from the gravitational collapse of large clouds of interstellar material .
Interstellar matter, that found lying between the stars, is made from gas and dust . Granted, only about 10 percent of the mass in our Milky Way galaxy is made up of interstellar matter. But this material, as tenuous as it is, exerts a gravitational force, and as a result, it will begin to pull itself together. As this accretion continues, the gravity becomes increasingly strong because its strength rises as the mass increases and the distance of the individual atoms decreases. Eventually this interstellar matter entirely collapses in on itself.