How do stars form and what is the point of them instead of just looking pretty in the sky at night?

Question: How do stars form and what is the point of them instead of just looking pretty in the sky at night?
- Keywords:
  star
Asked by lidivampire to Tim on 21 Jun 2011.
- Tim Fosker answered on 21 Jun 2011:
  
  Hi @Lidivampire,
  
  I’m not really sure of the purpose of stars, but some of them are very important to us. The sun for example is a star and without it all life on Earth would die.
  
  As for how stars form, there is a great page on wikipedia on that – with some cool pictures 🙂
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_formation

Question: How do stars form and what is the point of them instead of just looking pretty in the sky at night?