Strange rings of light appear to link together in space in new discovery

Astronomers are marveling at a distant galaxy surrounded by two giant, intersecting rings of radio light in space, each about 300,000 light-years wide.

The discovery, made by volunteers in the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory citizen-science program in Mumbai, is what's known as — and we're not kidding — an "Odd Radio Circle." The rings both sit within an even bigger radio cloud that stretches nearly 3 million light-years.

These circles, sometimes called ORCs for short, were only found six years ago, and their origin is still a mystery. They may be shockwaves from merging black holes or galaxies. Most are 10 to 20 times larger than the Milky Way, but only a handful are known so far. 

The newly reported ORC, named RAD J131346.9+500320, is the most distant and powerful ever found. It sits so far away in space that astronomers see it as it was when the universe was just half its current age of 13.8 billion years, because light has taken so long to reach Earth. What makes it even more extraordinary is that it's composed of two overlapping circles — a double-ring phenomenon seen only once before. 

"ORCs are among the most bizarre and beautiful cosmic structures we've ever seen," said Ananda Hota, founder of the program, in a statement, "and they may hold vital clues about how galaxies and black holes co-evolve, hand-in-hand."

This composite image shows a distant galaxy in optical light with a rare phenomenon called an "Odd Radio Circle," RAD J131346.9+500320, overlaid on top in red. Credit: RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India)

This is the first ORC discovered through citizen-assisted science and the first identified using LOFAR, a network of antennas spread across the Netherlands and other European countries. ORCs can only be detected by radio telescopes. 

The discovery came from volunteers using their own eyes to scan deep space maps, searching for unusual patterns that computers may have missed. The findings were published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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The authors suggest that these rings might be created by powerful winds blowing out of certain galaxies, which toss material out into distant space and shape it into these structures. An animation created by the program, shown below, depicts the rare double-ring ORC expanding after an explosive event in the central galaxy.

In addition to the double ring, the program found two other examples. In RAD J122622.6+640622, astronomers saw a galaxy nearly 3 million light-years across. One of the jets shooting out of its core formed a sudden curve, blowing a ring of radio light about 100,000 light-years wide. 

In the third, RAD J142004.0+621715, the galaxy stretched 1.4 million light-years and showed a similar ring at the tip of one of its jets, with another narrow jet displayed on the other side of the host galaxy.

Scientists say these strange cosmic objects demonstrate that galaxies can shape their surroundings in more ways than expected.

"ORCs and radio rings are not isolated curiosities," said Pratik Dabhade, a coauthor from the National Centre for Nuclear Research in Poland, in a statement. "They are part of a broader family of exotic plasma structures shaped by black hole jets, winds, and their environments."