Cosmic dust in the center of our Milky Way galaxy resulted from supernova have finally been observed using the infrared telescope.

“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” said Ryan Lau of Cornell University, lead author of the study.

There was so evidence that supernova produces the cosmic dust.

What is supernova? A supernova is an explosion of a massive supergiant star.

When the astronomers were examining the Milky Way they observed the ancient intersteller dust cloud known as Supernova Remnant Sagittarius A East.

“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 astronomers have found details about the supernova remnant near the center of Milky Way galaxy by using an instrument called FORCAST (the Faint Object Infrared Camera Telescope) on board SOFIA (the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), which is a joint project between German Aerospace Center, NASA and the Universities Space Research Association.

Previously it was thought that when the star dies after running out of fuel it explodes and no remnants are left. But it turns out that supernova which contains mineral enriched material like silicon, carbon and iron produces star dust as they explode. And this dust again forms the next generation of stars and planets.