{"id":257669,"date":"2025-09-27T03:01:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T03:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/257669\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T03:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T03:01:12","slug":"eerie-circles-in-space-could-be-blasts-from-black-holes-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/257669\/","title":{"rendered":"Eerie Circles in Space Could Be Blasts From Black Holes : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strangely sharp circles of radio waves in space have puzzled astronomers since their surprise discovery in 2019. Now, a team has analyzed one closely in hopes that it might give up its secrets.<\/p>\n

Firing up a new observatory brings the possibility of discovering brand-new phenomena out in space that our technology has not been able to see before.<\/p>\n

That’s precisely what happened in 2019, when the first pilot survey of CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope<\/a> spotted several odd radio circles<\/a>. They were named, in classic astronomer fashion, “odd radio circles<\/a>” (ORCs).<\/p>\n

Related: Mysteriously Perfect Sphere Spotted in Space by Astronomers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

These huge, bright, eerily circular structures<\/a> are clearly visible in radio wavelengths but are invisible in optical, infrared, or X-ray wavelengths. Only about 10 candidates are known so far, and their origin remains unexplained.<\/p>\n

For the new study, a team led by scientists at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany closely examined one such circle, designated ORC J0356-4216.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn annotated MeerKAT image of ORC J0356\u20134216. (Taziaux et al., arXiv, 2025)<\/p>\n

The team used the ASKAP and MeerKAT radio telescopes \u2013 the latter of which originally discovered the ORC in October 2023 \u2013 to study the wavelengths and polarization of J0356-4216’s radio waves.<\/p>\n

The astronomers discovered that the ORC is made up of two symmetrical rings, spanning a total diameter of about 2.18 million light-years. They seem to have a polarization of between 20 and 30 percent, with a magnetic field oriented tangentially to the rings.<\/p>\n

Like many other ORCs, J0356-4216 is centered on a galaxy, and that could be key to figuring out how they form.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube frameborder=”0\u2033 allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen><\/p>\n

The researchers say that the most likely explanation is that it’s a shock wave from past activity in the galaxy, which could include starburst outflows<\/a>, a collision between two galaxies<\/a>, or a phase when the central supermassive black hole<\/a> flared up with increased activity<\/a> as an active galactic nucleus<\/a> (AGN).<\/p>\n

“In the case of ORC J0356\u20134216, the observed double-lobed morphology and polarization characteristics are more readily explained by relic emission from previous AGN activity or jet-driven outflows,” the researchers conclude<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The research has yet to be peer-reviewed, but is available as a preprint on the arXiv server<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strangely sharp circles of radio waves in space have puzzled astronomers since their surprise discovery in 2019. Now,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":257670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[352,159,783,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-257669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-msft-content","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115274036733295062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}