Astronomers have discovered the dust of an ancient supernova near the center of the Milky Way using a giant telescope connected to a modified Boeing 747 jet.

Scientists believe the cosmic dust from which stars, planets and even people are formed is generated by supernovae. Some research, however, has suggested up to 80 percent of the material supernovae might generate is destroyed by the explosions.

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"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 lead author Ryan Lau, a postdoctoral associate for astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

Lau was interested in why galaxies, which formed as early as one billion years following the Big Bang, have such massive amounts of dust. The principal theory explains that the dust appears from supernovae as stars reach the end of their lives. These stars contain large amounts of metal and elements such as iron and carbon.

Lau's team used instrument called FORCAST (the Faint Object Infrared Camera Telescope) on board SOFIA (the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), a joint project between NASA, German Aerospace Center and the Universities Space Research Association, to gain an invaluable insight to one particular supernova remnant near the center of our galaxy.

They observed Sagittarius A East, a supernova that occurred 10,000 years ago. The remnants of that supernova lie near the center of the Milky Way.

In the turbulent environment of a supernova, however, scientists believe much of the churning dust would be destroyed by the reverse-shocks that occur when supernovae shockwaves bounce off the dense matter surrounding the explosion.

"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 new discovery was published in the journal Science Express.

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