The Large Magellanic Cloud (pictured) likely stripped gas from its smaller neighbour, forming a bridge between them (Image: C. Smith/S. Points/MCELS Team/NOAO/AURA/NSF)

MOST stars are gregarious, grouping together by the billions in galaxies like our Milky Way. Now evidence is mounting that stars may form in between galaxies.

Vanessa McBride at the University of Southampton in the UK and her colleagues looked at X-rays arriving from the space between two nearby galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic clouds. The energy spectrum and periodic fluctuations of the X-rays, recorded by the INTEGRAL satellite, suggest they are coming from young binary …