Hubble discovers a new type of celestial object

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered Cloud-9, a celestial object initially thought to be a faint galaxy but now identified as a dark-matter cloud containing no stars. This marks the first confirmed discovery of a "Reionization-Limited H I Cloud" (RELHIC), a "failed galaxy" that never accumulated enough mass to form stars and represents a fossil from the early universe. The discovery suggests many similar starless clouds may exist throughout the universe, offering new insights into dark matter and early galaxy formation processes.