The Stars, Like Dust is widely considered as one of Asimov's worst works, even by the author himself. The story, part of Asimov's Empire series, involves a search for an ancient document that will help govern the galaxy -- the document is ultimately revealed to be the United States Constitution.
Asimov noted in his autobiography that the genesis of the Constitution subplot lay with H. L. Gold, editor of Galaxy magazine. Asimov felt that Gold's judgement was at fault by attributing too much power to the Constitution as a document. Asimov later considered the premise highly improbable, and became annoyed at Gold for having persuaded him to insert the subplot into the novel. Whatever Asimov's opinion of the novel, he never actually withdrew it from publication.
The observed radiation from the disk is caused by dust particles which reflect the light of the central star.
The central portion of the disk remains unseen because of residual glare from the bright star.
All dust rings, whether around stars or planets, can only stay intact by some mechanism confining the dust, likely the gravitational tug of unseen planets.
A star is a body that at some time in its life generates its light and heat by nuclear reactions, specifically by the fusion of hydrogen into helium under conditions of enormous temperature and density.
Stars can range up to about 100 times the mass of the Sun (at which point nature stops making them) down to around 8% that of the Sun, at which point the internal temperature is not high enough to run the full range of nuclear reactions (which requires at least 7 million degrees Kelvin).
The part of the star that is exploaded outward is so hot that nuclear reactions produce all the chemical elements, including a tenth of a solar mass of iron, which then blend with the gasses of interstellar space, out of which new stars are formed.
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