With help from citizen scientists, astronomers have spotted the most powerful “odd radio circle” (ORC) yet. The discovery could give astronomers a better understanding of how these unusual objects — and the galaxies they encircle — form.
“ORCs are among the most bizarre and beautiful cosmic structures we’ve ever seen — and they may hold vital clues about how galaxies and black holes co-evolve, hand in hand,” Ananda Hota, founder of the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory and co-author of a new paper describing the findings, said in a statement.
ORCs were first described in 2019 by a team using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder. They are essentially gigantic, faint rings of plasma that appear to surround certain galaxies and emit radio waves. To date, only around a dozen of these enormous objects — most of which are 10 to 20 times the size of the Milky Way — have been found. But researchers think the newly discovered ORC may offer some clues about how these cosmic behemoths form.
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