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.
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