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Astronomers Spot the Most Powerful and Distant 'Odd Radio Circle' Ever Seen
Citizen scientists identified the most powerful twin odd radio circles linked to supermassive black hole jets in galaxy clusters 7 billion light-years away, expanding known ORCs to 11.
- Citizen scientists on the RAD@home platform flagged twin odd radio circles, marking only the second such system found and the most distant at about 7 billion light-years.
- Six years ago, ORCs were first identified in 2019 by Anna Kapinska of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory using ASKAP data, and only around a dozen have been found, highlighting their rarity.
- Data show a galaxy catalogued as RAD J122622.6+640622 with diffuse emission spanning 3 million light-years and a radio jet bending back, while LOFAR confirmed two rings 978,000 light-years across in RAD J131346.9+500320.
- Researchers say the discovery could give astronomers a better understanding of how these unusual objects form, and Ananda Hota, University of Mumbai, called ORCs "among the most bizarre and beautiful cosmic structures we've ever seen."
- Moving forward, LOFAR and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory may reveal more about ORCs, while the Square Kilometre Array is expected to find many more and test black-hole merger shock-wave hypotheses.
12 Articles
12 Articles
By Ashley Strickland, CNN An unusual double-ring structure detected in space with the help of civilian scientists has turned out to be a cosmic oddity. The celestial anomaly, captured by a radio telescope, is a strange radio circle, one of the rarest and most mysterious objects in the universe, said Dr. Ananda Hota, lead author of a study published October 2 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Strange radio circles,…
Citizen scientists just discovered the most powerful 'odd radio circle' twins in space we've ever seen
Three new ORCS – "odd radio circles" – have been found associated with giant, active galaxies, giving astronomers clues as to how these immense, enigmatic structures form.
An international team of astronomers has just detected a cosmic structure that surprises with its size, power and distance.This is RAD J131346.9+500320, a double ring of radio waves located 7.5 billion light years from Earth.This phenomenon, known as ORC (Odd Radio Circle), becomes the most luminous and distant ever observed.The finding marks an important advance in the study of the deep universe. In addition, it highlights the role of citizen s…
Astronomers Discover Most Distant And Powerful Odd Radio Circle In The Universe
A rare discovery in deep space has stunned astronomers: twin radio rings surrounding a galaxy about 7 billion light-years away. Known as an odd radio circle (ORC), this is the most distant and powerful ever found. Citizen scientists first spotted it, and LOFAR confirmed its existence, opening new insights into galactic and black hole evolution.
At seven billion light-years ago, astronomers spotted a rare phenomenon: two giant circles of energy floating around a distant galaxy. An amazing discovery that could reveal new secrets about the birth of galaxies.
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