The Milky Way galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy. All stars begin as part of a nebula, which is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, and plasma. It is the first stage of a star's cycle. Parallax is used to determine a star's distance, and the force that pulls together the matter in stars is gravity, the strength of which depends on the mass and distance between objects. Depending on its mass, a star may live from 10 million to 200 billion years.