Most people who follow science know that “we are all made of star stuff”. However, the source of all that star stuff hasn’t been directly observed before. Scientists believe that the cosmic dust from which stars, planets and even people are formed is generated by supernovae but some research has suggested that up to 80 percent of the material that a supernovae might generate is destroyed by the explosions.

When researchers use telescopes to look back in time, into the early universe, they can see vast dust clouds. These clouds will go on to form stars, planets, asteroids, comets and all of the other stuff we find in space, including anything that may live on the planets.

Now, for the first time, researchers have actually observed a dust cloud that is the result of an ancient supernovae.

“Dust itself is very important because it’s the stuff that forms stars and planets, like the sun and Earth, respectively, so to know where it comes from is an important question. Our work strongly reinforces the theory that supernovae are producing the dust seen in galaxies of the early universe,” said Ryan Lau in a statement.

Lau is a Cornell postdoctoral associate for astronomy, and lead author of research published March 19 in Science Express.

The Cornell researcher was interested in why galaxies, which formed as early as 1 billion years following the Big Bang contain such large amounts of dust. The leading theory states that the dust emerges from supernovae as stars reach the end of their lives. These stars contain large amounts of metal as well as elements like iron and carbon.

Al and his fellow researchers examined Sagittarius A East, a supernova that occurred 10,000 years ago. The remnants of that supernova lie near the center of the Milky Way.

The dust forming from the material of the center of a supernova has been observed in young supernova remnants. However, in the tubulent environment of a supernova scientists believe that much of the churning dust would be destroyed by the reverse-shocks which occur when supernovae shockwaves bounce off the dense matter surrounding the explosion.

“That is theoretically, there have been no direct observations of any dust surviving the environment of the supernova remnant … until now, and that’s why our observations of an ‘old’ supernova are so important,” said Lau.

The observations were made using the Faint Object Infrared Camera Telescope (FORCAST) on board the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). SOFIA is a modified Boing 747, jointly maintained by NASA, the Universities Space Research Association and the German Aerospace Center. No current space-based telescope is able to make observations at far-infrared wavelengths and those wavelengths are blocked from ground based telescopes by Earth’s atmosphere.