It is 232 million light-years (71 Mpc) from Earth and measures 463,000 ly (142,000 pc) across, making it one of the largest known spiral galaxies.

[14] NASA has reported that the theorized main source for disk growth for UGC 2885 came from the accretion of intergalactic hydrogen gas, rather than through the repeated process of galactic collision, as most galaxies are thought to grow.

Additionally, despite being originally classified as an unbarred spiral galaxy, new Hubble images clearly show the presence of a small bar cutting across the ring structure of the core.

This galaxy highlights that bars are able to form in spiral galaxies without the influence of another galaxy—this indicates that other forces, such as interactions between stars, gas and dust, as well as the gravitational influence of dark matter, might play a role in their development.

One supernova has been observed in UGC 2885: on 17 January 2002, the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope discovered SN 2002F (type II, mag.