Astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley have discovered the nearest and youngest star with a visible disk of dust that could be a home for planets. The dim red star, AU Microscopium, is only 33 light-years away. It's half the mass of the Sun, and only 12 million years old (our Sun is 4.6 billion years old). The star was imaged using the University of Hawaii's 2.2-metre telescope atop Mauna Kea, which can block out the central star to reveal dimmer material.