In a dark, starless patch of intergalactic space,
astronomers have discovered a never-before-seen cluster of hydrogen clouds
strewn between two nearby galaxies, Andromeda (M31) and Triangulum (M33). The
researchers speculate that these rarefied blobs of gas -- each about as massive
as a dwarf galaxy -- condensed out of a vast and as-yet undetected reservoir of
hot, ionized gas, which could have accompanied an otherwise invisible band of
dark matter.