Find in News Talk Sites Images For advanced search options, click here . Subscribe for free email updates . Click here to sign up, or log in . An Australian-led team of astronomers has challenged conventional Big Bang theory by finding that large numbers of stars may be living unseen in the space between the galaxies.
Galaxies live in great clusters, like swarms of bees.
The astronomers have been hunting for stray stars in two clusters, Virgo and Fornax. Galaxies jostle and harass each other, and you'd expect that a lot of stars get flung out of them, says Dr David Malin of the Anglo-Australian Observatory, another member of the observing team. But although people looked for these lost sheep before, they didn't find them. The amount of space between the galaxies is so big that the stars are very spread out and therefore look quite dim overall. Our approach, which is new, is to look for stars near the end of their lives, when for a short time they shed a lot of their material, says Professor Freeman.