(CNN) Researchers have found dust from an exploded star, or supernova, in snow from Antarctica, according to a study published this month.

The discovery could provide lessons about the solar system's history and place in its surrounding environment, the study, published August 12 in the Physical Review Letters , said.

A supernova occurs when a star explodes and produces clouds or gas and dust enriched with radioisotopes. Some of that dust from one or more stars that exploded within the last 20 million years fell to Earth sometime in the past 20 years, according to the study. Now it's been found in snow taken from the sparsely inhabited continent.

"I'm really glad and happy to actually see something which traveled billions of billions of kilometers through space and is millions of years old," said Dominik Koll, a nuclear astrophysicist who led the discovery and co-authored the study. "To be able to use the data on Earth that's pretty amazing."

Researchers took about 1,100 pounds of snow from Antarctica and tested it for space dust.

Koll told CNN that researchers made the discovery after shipping 500 kg (about 1,100 pounds) of snow from Antarctica to a research facility in Munich, Germany.

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