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We believe our HST observations of NGC 4038/4039 and other merger galaxies also shed some new light on how young globular clusters form, i.e., from giant clouds of hydrogen gas that astronomers call Giant Molecular Clouds. Full-grown spiral galaxies like the Milky Way have typically 1000-2000 such clouds. An example is the GMC associated with the Eagle Nebula.

Object Name: M31

Image Type: Astronomical

Credit: Michael Rich, Kenneth Mighell, and James D. Neill (Columbia University), Wendy Freedman (OCIW) and NASA

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