To their surprise, an international team of researchers has discovered a giant and extremely faint stream of stars between galaxies. While streams are already known in our own galaxy and in nearby galaxies, this is the first time that a stream running between galaxies has been observed. It is the largest stream detected to date. The astronomers have published their findings in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The first observations were made with astronomer Michael Rich's relatively small 70-centimeter telescope in California (United States of America). Next, the researchers focused the 4.2-meter William Herschel telescope (La Palma, Spain) on the area. After image processing, they saw an extremely faint stream more than 10 times the length of our Milky Way. The stream appears floating in the middle of the cluster environment, not associated with any galaxy in particular. The researchers have named it the Giant Coma Stream.

The one on the left is female, the one on the right is male - you can tell the difference as the male has only a single stamen in the centre. You can also tell the difference if you look behind the flowers, the female has a tiny zucchini attaching it to the plant, the male has a normal stem.

If your baby zucchini are withering on the vine rather than growing you need to hand pollinate them. You can either pull off the male flower, remove the stamen and brush it onto the centre of the female flower or use a brush to transfer the pollen (the flowers wither soon anyway, so I just remove the flower).

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.