1. INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Sezione di Firenze, Largo Enrico Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy
2. CNR-IRA, Sezione di Firenze, Largo Enrico Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy
3. "Enrico Fermi" Center, Via Panisperna 89/A, 00184 Roma, Italy
4. Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, C. Alvarez de Abreu, 70, 38700 Santa Cruz de la Palma, Spain
5. SISSA/International School for Advanced Studies, Via Beirut 4, 34100 Trieste, Italy
6. Astrofisico Fco. Sànchez, Universidad de La Laguna, 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

Correspondence to: R. Maiolino¹ Email: maiolino@arcetri.astro.it

Abstract

Interstellar dust plays a crucial role in the evolution of the Universe by assisting the formation of molecules¹, by triggering the formation of the first low-mass stars², and by absorbing stellar ultraviolet–optical light and subsequently re-emitting it at infrared/millimetre wavelengths. Dust is thought to be produced predominantly in the envelopes of evolved (age >1 Gyr), low-mass stars³. This picture has, however, recently been brought into question by the discovery of large masses of dust in the host galaxies of quasars^{4, 5} at redshift z > 6, when the age of the Universe was less than 1 Gyr. Theoretical studies^{6, 7, 8}, corroborated by observations of nearby supernova remnants^{9, 10, 11}, have suggested that supernovae provide a fast and efficient dust formation environment in the early Universe. Here we report infrared observations of a quasar at redshift 6.2, which are used to obtain directly its dust extinction curve. We then show that such a curve is in excellent agreement with supernova dust models. This result demonstrates a supernova origin for dust in this high-redshift quasar, from which we infer that most of the dust at high redshifts probably has the same origin.

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