Supernovae and Planet Formation

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA’s SOFIA Finds Missing Link Between Supernovae and Planet Formation

Using NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), an international scientific team discovered that supernovae are capable of producing a substantial amount of the material from which planets like Earth can form.

These findings are published in the March 19 online issue of Science magazine.

"Our observations reveal a particular cloud produced by a supernova explosion 10,000 years ago contains enough dust to make 7,000 Earths," said Ryan Lau of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Read more...

[She-ra]

Here's another article on this and it's fascinating!

Scientists have long known that "we are made of star stuff" -- or, in other words, cosmic dust. But where all that dust came from, and how it survived, has been a bit of a mystery.

Previous research held that supernovas--explosions of stars in their death throes--spewed out massive amounts of dust into the early universe. However, astronomers didn't know if that dust was able to withstand shockwaves from the explosion to serve as fodder for planets and stars to form.

Read more here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/22/supernova-cosmic-dust_n_6911278.html