A nearby star rings in the new year

I am fascinated by junk floating around stars. And no, not paparazzi, har har. I mean circumstellar material, literally gas and dust orbiting other stars. We see it around stars that are dying, we see it around stars being born, and we see it even after stars are well into their youth. One such young'un is the bright and shiny HR4796, a star 240 light years away, with about twice the mass of the Sun. It's known to be less than 10 million years old -- compare that to the Sun's age of 4.56 billion years; we're 450 times older! -- and has also been known for some time to have material around it in the shape of a ring. New observations by Japan's huge 8.2 meter Subaru telescope have provided some of the sharpest views of this ring ever taken, and revealed some surprises.