Astronomers discover the most powerful ‘strange radio circle’ twins ever detected

Deep in space, astronomers have discovered another “strange radio circle” – the latest in a short list of mysterious rings that surround distant galaxies – and researchers say this one is particularly peculiar.

“Strange radio circles,” or ORCs, are huge, unexplained phenomena that can only be detected using radio telescopes. So far, only a handful of them have been identified.

Now, researchers at the University of Mumbai in India, with the help of citizen scientists and the world’s largest low-frequency radio telescope, have identified “the most distant and powerful ORC known to date,” according to the London-based Royal Astronomical Society. The group published a study on the new discovery in the October issue of its scientific journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

While ORCs detected in the past looked like a single glowing circle, this one consisted of two intersecting rings, which is rare. Previously, research into ORCs suggested the rings could be caused by shock waves triggered by merging black holes or supermassive galaxies, but the latest findings suggest they could actually be linked to the “superwind” escaping from their host galaxies, the Royal Astronomical Society said.

“ORCs are some of the most bizarre and beautiful cosmic structures we have ever seen – and they may hold essential clues about how galaxies and black holes co-evolve, hand in hand,” Ananda Hota, founder of the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory, a platform where citizen scientists have helped spot the ORC, said in a press release.

“The fact that citizen scientists discovered them highlights the continued importance of human pattern recognition, even in the age of machine learning,” Pratik Dabhade of the National Center for Nuclear Research in Warsaw, Poland, co-author of the study, said in a separate statement. “These findings show that ORCs and radio rings are not isolated curiosities: they are part of a larger family of exotic plasma structures shaped by black hole jets, winds and their environments.”