  We use ideal hydrodynamics to investigate clustering in a gas of
inelastically colliding spheres. The hydrodynamic equations exhibit a new type
of finite-time density blowup, where the gas pressure remains finite. The
density blowups signal formation of close-packed clusters. The blowup dynamics
are universal and describable by exact analytic solutions continuable beyond
the blowup time. These solutions show that dilute hydrodynamic equations yield
a powerful effective description of a granular gas flow with close-packed
clusters, described as finite-mass point-like singularities of the density.
This description is similar in spirit to the description of shocks in ordinary
ideal gas dynamics.
