Stars are born from clouds of gas and dust in space called nebulae that collapse under their own gravity, generating nuclear fusion at temperatures over 10 million degrees C. The nearest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri over 25 trillion miles away. There are estimated to be about 200 billion billion stars in the universe, ranging in size from the Sun to supergiant stars over 700 times the Sun's size. Stars glow through nuclear fusion reactions, their color depends on temperature from blue-white hot stars to red cool stars, and they twinkle due to Earth's moving atmosphere distorting their light.