Phil

Interstellar dust is important for a variety of fundamental astrophysical processes and yet the origin of this dust is not particularly well-constrained. Dust can form in the envelopes of evolved stars, but not efficiently enough to overcome destruction rates and yield the abundances observed in our galaxy. Supernovae, which dominate the mechanical evolution of the ISM, can help balance the dust production budget. SN1987A, being relatively young as well as the brightest supernova observed in over 400 years, is a unique and exciting laboratory for studying supernova ejecta dust production. We have obtained new high-resolution observations of the continuum emission from the SN1987A system with ALMA, which we present here. We analyze the location and morphology of the dust, and compare with resolved emission at different wavelengths. In the future, we will use the relative distributions of dust and molecular species such as CO and SiO to help determine the dust composition and constrain the physics of supernova dust formation.