Astronomers have detected the oldest star dust from the earliest stars that first shined in the universe. These ancient stellar remnants belong to a galaxy known as A2744_YD4 which emitted this cosmic dust when the universe was only 600 million years old.

Thanks to the ALMA telescope (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), follow up observations by the European Southern Observatory's VLT (Very Large Telescope) was able to detect this star dust. Scientists also reveal that the galaxy A2744_YD4 is so distant that it is located some 3.5 billion light years away from Earth.

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This also means that when this star light was emitted from this galaxy, the ALMA telescope should not be able to detect this and create high quality observations from this ancient star dust. With the help of gravitational lensing, the international team was able to make new observations of this ancient galactic structure, that helped scientists view this phenomenon with more detail.

These new observations revealed how the ancient galaxy  A2744_YD4 evolved into a massive galaxy cluster known as Abell 2744. Also called the Pandora Cluster, this is also the result of a massive collision between four smaller galaxy clusters that have merged within 350 million years.

This data then revealed that A2744_YD4 now possesses a massive amount of interstellar dust that created the first generation of stars in the universe. Astronomers also observed how the Pandora Cluster resulted in a brilliant supernova.

These cosmic dust clouds are estimated to possess 6 million solar masses that contain vast amounts of carbon, silicon and aluminum. Scientists also detected ionized oxygen which suggests that A2744_YD4 is the most distant and oldest galaxy that possesses oxygen in the history of the universe.

This stellar nursery apparently gave birth to stars containing 20 solar masses every year. Astronomers estimated that this newly detected star dust was created in a span of 200 million years.

Interstellar dust is the key ingredient in the formation of stars and galaxies, especially planets like Earth and stars like our sun. This new discovery shows how these dust clouds from A2744_YD4 were originally created 13 billion years ago. This can also provide important clues about the birth and death of the first stars to shine in the universe.