This paper is concerned with the three dimensional compressible Euler–Poisson equations with moving physical vacuum boundary condition. This fluid system is usually used to describe the motion of a self-gravitating inviscid gaseous star. The local existence of classical solutions for initial data in certain weighted Sobolev spaces is established in the case that the adiabatic index satisfies class="mathmlsrc">class="formulatext stixSupport mathImg" data-mathURL="/science?_ob=MathURL&_method=retrieve&_eid=1-s2.0-S0021782415001609&_mathId=si1.gif&_user=111111111&_pii=S0021782415001609&_rdoc=1&_issn=00217824&md5=2e0a6bb4b413dd6d591f24024a9b46ac" title="Click to view the MathML source">1<γ<3class="mathContainer hidden">class="mathCode">.