An unusual double-ring structure spotted in space with the help of citizen scientists has turned out to be a cosmic rarity.
The celestial anomaly, captured by a radio telescope, is an odd radio circle, one of the scarcest and most mysterious objects in the universe, said Dr. Ananda Hota, lead author of a study published on October 2 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Odd radio circles, also known as ORCs, likely consist of magnetized plasma — charged gas that is strongly influenced by magnetic fields — and are so massive that entire galaxies reside at their centers. Spanning hundreds of thousands of light-years, they often reach 10 to 20 times the size of our Milky Way galaxy. But they are also incredibly faint, and usually detectable only through radio light.
The newly discovered odd radio circle, dubbed RAD J131346.9+500320, is the most distant one known to date, located 7.5 billion light-years from Earth — and the first discovered by citizen scientists. It’s also only the second odd radio circle that has two rings.
“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,” wrote Hota, an assistant professor at the University of Mumbai’s department of atomic energy’s Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, in an email.
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