Billions of years ago, before the Earth was formed, what later became our solar system was made up of dynamic, gaseous elements from a massive supernova.

In other words, supernova remnants, what's left over when a star explodes, contain the essential elements for life. That's why scientists have been studying supernovae, such as a well-known one called Cassiopeia A, to learn more about the universe's building blocks.

Now, a visualization from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory illustrates how these elements disseminate. X-ray images taken by the Chandra telescope orbiting our planet show the remnants of Cassiopeia A located 11,000 light years from Earth in the Cassiopeia constellation.

In the video above, silicon is represented as red, sulfur is shown