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Diffuse x-ray emission has now been discovered in over a dozen poor groups of galaxies with the ROSAT PSPC. The temperature of the x-ray emitting gas is $\sim$ 1 keV, with low metal abundances implied in some cases. These properties are similar to those found in the NGC 2300 group. Under the assumption that the gas is in hydrostatic equilibrium, the x-ray observations can be used to estimate the total masses of these systems. We provide a summary of the x-ray and optical properties of x-ray detected groups and compare them to clusters of galaxies.
