Number 64 (Story #2), January 20, 1992 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein LOW SURFACE BRIGHTNESS GALAXIES have roughly the same mass, size, and shape (many have spiral arms) as ordinary "bright" galaxies, but emit only about one-tenth the amount of light, suggesting that much of their matter has not yet formed into stars. At the AAS meeting Stacy McGaugh of the University of Michigan and Patricia M. Knezek of the University of Massachusetts reported that many of the LSB galaxies tended to lie in less populated areas of the universe and that this relative lack of neighbors may account for the slower rate of star production. If this hypothesis is correct, Knezek asserts, the study of LSB galaxies might provide information about past eras of star formation in disk galaxies.