"we are not stardust"

The popular saying, 'We are stardust', in science does come from a credible research into the origins or presence of the mass or matter of the universe.

However since then, as science explores more, the above saying does not completely describe what is known about origins if one wishes to apply knowledge fully to sources of the cosmos.

Searching further for credible origins, as those who follow that in most cases that for a given something will break down even further, scientists have come up with something other than just stardust. It is found that it is not the only basic presence in the cosmos.

Material comes from somewhere, so while stardust is the residue of earlier star disintegration into fine elements, it does not exhaust the sources origins. How did the stardust come about? Indeed how did stars come about? Consequently, stardust is not the lowest common denominator to be discerned.

It is widely accepted that stars arise from compressed elements and hydrogen which eventually ignite and so 'shine'. That presence does rely on the accruement of the right elements for the ignition, and it does burn up that fuel. Otherwise it would not occur without the right arrangement of elements.

So eventually that process stops and space returns to its previous condition-dark. No stardust or elements are produced. The presence of the cosmos is cradled in vacuum or "dark sector". That may well be at least the backdrop of the cosmos.

Yet it is said the stars come about. In the preceding, pervasive dark, with no illumination, dark elements may come together and eventually produce the right formulation for conflagration to proceed.

The shining stars owe their ephemeral, material existence to unseen processes in the dark, which in some locations they may ignite or arise or not (not all occasions to conflagrate succeed). Hence, for expressing origins and since it is the source upon which stars develop, it is rather more accurate to say: we are darkness.