Formation of clouds of gas, within galaxies in "modern" times

Galaxy montage

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~wkim/Images/galaxysample_block.jpg

Galaxy Montage

Gravitational Instabilities in a Gaseous Disk from simulations of Woong-Tae Kim, Eve Ostriker & James Stone

http://www.astro.umd.edu/~kimwt/MOVIES/DISK/index.html

3-D Movies of Instability leading to Formation of Molecular Clouds, from

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~wkim/movies.html

Optical Image showing Star Formation in Molecular Clouds of a Spiral Galaxy (M51)

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/2001/10/image/a