Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/B.E.K. Sugerman (STScI)

Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have spotted a "dust factory" thirty million light-years away in the spiral galaxy M74. The factory is located at the scene of a massive star's explosive death, or supernova.

While astronomers have suspected for years that supernovae could be producers of cosmic dust particles, the technology to confirm this suspicion has only recently become available.

The dust factory, also known as supernova SN 2003gd, is shown at the center of this image from Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (IRAC). The yellow-green dot shows that the source's temperature is warmer than the surrounding material. This is because newly formed dust within the supernova is just starting to cool.

The image is a infrared composite, in which 3.6-micron light is blue, 4.5-micron light is green, and 8-micron light is red. The image was obtained in July 2004.

The image is a infrared composite, in which 3.6-micron light is blue, 4.5-micron light is green, and 8-micron light is red. The image was obtained in July 2004.