"The Grasshopper" Galaxy: UGC 4881 in Lynx | Hubble Space Telescope

"The Grasshopper" Galaxy: UGC 4881 in Lynx | Hubble Space Telescope

UGC 4881, known as the "The Grasshopper", is a stunning system consisting of two colliding galaxies UGC 4881A and UGC 4881B. It has a bright curly tail containing a remarkable number of star clusters. The galaxies are thought to be halfway through a merger—the cores of the parent galaxies are still clearly separated, but their discs are overlapping. A supernova exploded in this system in 1999 and astronomers believe that a vigorous burst of star formation may have just started. This notable object is located in the constellation of Lynx, around 500 million light-years away from Earth. UGC 4881 is the 55th galaxy in Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.

UGC 4881 was first given the nickname "The Grasshopper" by Russian astrophysicist Dr. Boris Vorontsov-Velyaminov in a 1977 paper due to its resemblance to grasshopper larvae. It has also been informally called the "Shrimp galaxy" due to the curvature of the arm resembling a shrimp.

Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)
Release Date: April 24, 2008

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