A mazingly, individual grains of dust from stars that existed before the Sun was born have made their way to Earth in meteorites. When subjected to a battery of cutting‐edge laboratory techniques, these tiny grains provide thrilling new insights into such topics as the dynamics of supernova explosions, the age and chemical evolution of the Galaxy, fundamental nuclear physics and processes in the outer envelopes of stars. The path from dust grain to astrophysical insight is the subject of this article.

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