many galaxies continue to form new generations of stars. the milky way, and all spiral shaped galaxies like it (see right side image of ngc 2997), produce new stars at a rate of one or two stars per year. this star formation happens in the vast interstellar clouds that account for about 1% to 10% of the mass of these galaxies. globular star clusters, on the other hand, are not currently forming stars because this activity happened billions of years ago and then stopped once all of the gas and dust clouds were used up.