Evolution of the distance between two galaxies (upper panel) and the SF history of the merger system (bottom panel). The distance is measured between the centers of mass of the background stars in the galaxies. Bottom panel: SFR averaged over a timescale of 5 Myr. The blue curve represents the total SFR of the two dwarfs in the merger, while the orange curve represents twice the SFR of an isolated dwarf galaxy. The four stages of the merger–“Approach”, “1^st peak”, “Plateau”, and “2^nd peak” –are marked with shaded regions in various colors.