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    $\begingroup$ Of course, current hydrogen and other light elements arising from the big bang may have made up part of the mass of one or more stars along the way... $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Commented Jan 24, 2011 at 18:15
  • $\begingroup$ And where are all those burned out stars? $\endgroup$
    – Anixx
    Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 17:44
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    $\begingroup$ It depends which stars. The remains of those that went supernova were distributed across vast distances in the skies, for example: almost all the material explodes away. Others could have been swallowed by larger objects, e.g. the black hole at the galactic center. But I think that there haven't been too many stars that are already dead. The lifetime of an average star is not far from the current age of the Universe. $\endgroup$
    – Luboš Motl
    Commented Feb 7, 2011 at 21:03
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    $\begingroup$ @Anixx To add to what Luboš said about the loss of heavy stars (more than ~9 solar masses), those medium mass stars that have died formed white dwarfs, and have been cooling ever since. Though they are initially very hot white dwarfs are very small and consequently have low luminosity, which means that we can only see them close up. None-the-less, the wikipedia article says that one count found eight in the nearest hundred stars. So, the answer is "They are all around us." $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Commented Feb 13, 2011 at 23:06
  • $\begingroup$ "Others could have been swallowed by larger objects, e.g. the black hole at the galactic center." the BHs mostly formed from gas/dust clouds. "The lifetime of an average star is not far from the current age of the Universe." now, yes. But first stars had much shorter liftime otherwise how could they explode before Sun formed? $\endgroup$
    – Anixx
    Commented Feb 14, 2011 at 2:09