Number 98 (Story #1), October 13, 1992 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein CIRCUMSTELLAR DISKS have been discovered around the stars V376 Cas and V633 Cas in the Cassiopoeia constellation by scientists at the Nordic Optical Telescope in the Canary Islands. The disks consist mostly of micron-sized dust grains and extend out to a radius of 500-750 astronomical units from the stars. Starlight reflected by the dust is polarized, allowing the disks to be detected at near-infrared wavelengths. Some astronomers believe that circumstellar disks should surround many young stars, and that they represent the remnants of or the raw material for planet formation. The first circumstellar disk to be detected (in the 1980s), and the only one to be imaged, surrounds the star Beta Pictoris. (Nature, 1 Oct. 1992.)