What does * mean

[tonyd]

I've been looking at some tutorials on the MySQL site http://sqlcourse2.com/select2.html.
The following:

SELECT *

FROM items_ordered
WHERE item =

'Tent';

produces the same results as:

SELECT customerid,order_date,item,quantity,price FROM items_ordered
WHERE item = 'Tent';

What is * doing in this statement.