The process of star formation is one of the most fundamental and awe-inspiring phenomena in the universe. It begins within vast, cold, and dense clouds of gas and dust known as molecular clouds or stellar nurseries. These clouds are primarily composed of hydrogen, helium, and trace amounts of heavier elements.
Astronomers know that mergers play a huge role in galaxy growth. Right now, the Milky Way is slowly consuming the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The evidence is a stream of gas called the Magellanic Stream that's about 600,000 light-years long. The Milky Way (MW) is stripping this gas from the clouds, which don't have enough mass to retain it. They're losing the gravitational tug-of-war with the much more massive MW.

