Here is
LEDA 36252 - a cosmic tadpole. Galaxies of this class are referred to as
tadpoles because they have bright heads and elongated tails. This one is only 80 million light years away, but galaxies like this are uncommon in the nearby Universe. However they are quite common in the distant University. Remember that a telescope is like a time machine and we see distant objects as they were long ago. So it's probably that this tadpole shape is a stage that many galaxies pass through during their evolution.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Elmegreen (Vassar College), B. Elmegreen (IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center), J. Almeida, C. Munoz-Tunon, and M. Filho (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias), J. Mendez-Abreu (University of St. Andrews), J. Gallagher (University of Wisconsin-Madison), M. Rafelski (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), and D. Ceverino (Center for Astronomy at Heidelberg University)