Observations made with NASA's newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope of nearby supernova 1987A are allowing astronomers to measure the velocity and composition of "star guts" being ejected into space following the explosion, in a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. Supernovae are responsible for a large fraction of biologically important elements, including oxygen, carbon, and iron found in plants and animals on Earth today. The iron in our blood, for example, is believed to have been made by supernovae explosions.