 A firestorm of star birth is lighting up one end of this dwarf galaxy. The galaxy is shaped like a flattened pancake, but because it is tilted edge-on to our view, it resembles a skyrocket with a brilliant blazing head and a long star-studded tail. Kiso 5639 is a rare, nearby example of elongated galaxies that occur in abundance at large distances where we observe the universe during its earlier epics. Observations of the early universe, such as Hubble's ultra-deep field, reveal that about 10% of all galaxies have these elongated shapes, and are collectively called tadpoles. But studies of the nearby universe have turned up only a few of these unusual galaxies.