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.

SOFIA is a heavily modified Boeing 747 Special Performance jetliner housed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center. that carries a telescope with an effective diameter at altitudes up to 45,000 feet (14 km). NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, is home to the SOFIA Science Center, which is managed by NASA in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart. SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center.