Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2016
An intergalactic HI cloud of a few x109M⊙, previously detected using the Parkes Radio Telescope and the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) (English 1994; Freeman et al. 1996), has been confirmed in further ATCA observations of the NGC 3256 galaxy group. The group contains the prominent merging galaxy NGC 3256, which is surrounded by a number of HI fragments (English et al. 2003), the tidally disturbed galaxy NGC 3263 (Koribalski et al., in prep.), and several other galaxies. Using ATCA HI data we examine the nature of this massive gas cloud and its relationship to the neighbouring galaxies. This could be a primordial “galaxy building block”. However the cloud's properties, in conjunction with the spatial extents and velocity behaviours of the group's major galaxies, may indicate that it originated out of tidal debris.