Validation scores for GMMs with different numbers of components N. For AIC, BIC, and DB (top panels), lower values are preferred; and for Silhouette score and CH (bottom panels), higher values are preferred. AIC and BIC generally show indistinguishable values. Based on these scores, sensible choices are N = 4 and N = 6 for NG73, and N = 3 and N = 5 for NG76 (highlighted in gray). We note the different y-axis scales.