Astronomy’s newest mystery objects, odd radio circles/ORCs, have been pulled into sharp focus by an international team of astronomers using the world’s most capable radio telescopes. First revealed by the ASKAP radio telescope, odd radio circles quickly became objects of fascination and theories on what caused them ranged from galactic shockwaves to the throats of wormholes. A new detailed image, captured by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s MeerKAT radio telescope and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (DOI 10.1093/mnras/stac701), is providing researchers with more information to help narrow down those theories.
Read here the press release of the Department of Science & Innovation (Rep. of South Africa).
Image: MeerKAT radio telescope data (green) showing the odd radio circles is overlaid on optical and near infra-red data from the Dark Energy Survey. © Jayanne English (University of Manitoba) with support from the Evolutionary Map of the Universe team; data from the ASKAP radio telescope, MeerKAT and the Dark Energy Survey at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.