[The Cajun]

A similar baryonic haze, 150 times hotter than the sun's surface, was indirectly detected surrounding the Milky Way and connecting about three dozen other galaxies known collectively as the Local Group in 2003 by astronomers at Harvard and Ohio State Universities.

Sooooooo what the hell is keeping the old (13 billion years) baryonic haze perking at 150 times hotter than the sun's surface all this time?

[Swordmaker]

Sooooooo what the hell is keeping the old (13 billion years) baryonic haze perking at 150 times hotter than the sun's surface all this time?

GOOD question. How about electricity?

[dfwright]

Sooooooo what the hell is keeping the old (13 billion years) baryonic haze perking at 150 times hotter than the sun's surface all this time?

According to the article on Reuters, Dark matter is causing it.

"We think we are seeing the strands of a web-like structure that forms the backbone of the universe," said Mike Shull of the University of Colorado, who helped lead the study published in The Astrophysical Journal.

The matter is spread as superheated oxygen and hydrogen in what looked like vast empty spaces between galaxies.

However, observations of a quasar -- a bright object far off in space -- show its light is diffused much as a lighthouse can reflect on a thin fog that was invisible in the dark.

"It is kind of like a spider web. The gravity of the spider web is what produced what we see," Shull said in a telephone interview. "It's very thin. Some of it is very hot gas, almost a million degrees."

This is where the dark matter comes in. The dark matter is heating up the gas, Shull said.

"Dark matter has gravity. It pulls the gas in," Shull said. "This causes what I call sonic booms -- shock waves. This shock heats it to a million degrees. That makes it even harder to see."

Taken from Yahoo http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080520/sc_nm/space_matter_dc;_ylt=ArUSCr6B7YvO0dtiXfEMqGIEtbAF