How Long Do Stars Live?

There's no way to say how long the "average" star lives, because there's really no such thing as an "average" star.

Some stars are so small that their diameter is only 1/70,000 the diameter of the sun, while others have a diameter a thousand times larger than the sun's.

Stars "die" in different ways too. Some stars get smaller and cooler until they simply stop burning, while others blow themselves apart in tremendous explosions called supernovas.

Our sun is thought to be from five to six billion years old, and will probably continue burning for about another ten billion years.