  The dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 185- the closest early-type galaxy with
detectable molecular gas- offers a unique opportunity for high angular
resolution studies of the interstellar medium in early-type galaxies. I present
interferometric images (17 pc $\times$ 14 pc resolution) of CO emission from
NGC 185. The majority of the molecular gas in NGC 185 is in one resolved cloud,
closely associated with dust and an HI structure which may be a
photodissociated envelope. The high spatial resolution also reveals a velocity
gradient across the cloud, which allows a dynamical mass estimate independent
of the H2/CO conversion factor or the virial theorem. The linear sizes,
velocity gradients, and dynamical masses of the molecular clouds in NGC 185 and
NGC 205, a similar dwarf elliptical, are comparable to those of the largest
Galactic giant molecular clouds (GMCs). If the dynamical masses of the clouds
are assumed to be good estimates of their true masses, the inferred H2/CO
conversion factor in NGC 185 is at least eight times larger than a standard
Galactic conversion factor, and the reasons for this difference are not yet
understood. In any case, it seems clear that structures similar to Galactic
GMCs can form in small elliptical or early type galaxies, even in the absence
of spiral density waves.

Astrophysics