SPACE/COSMOS
Most powerful 'odd radio circle' to date is discovered
Royal Astronomical Society
image:
Optical RGB image from the Legacy Surveys, overlaid with radio emission in red from the LOFAR Two-Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS), showing the 'odd radio circle' (ORC) RAD J131346.9+500320.
view moreCredit: RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India)
The most distant and most powerful 'odd radio circle' (ORC) known so far has been discovered by astronomers.
These curious rings are a relatively new astronomical phenomenon, having been detected for the first time just six years ago. Only a handful of confirmed examples are known – most of which are 10-20 times the size of our Milky Way galaxy.
ORCs are enormous, faint, ring-shaped structures of radio emission surrounding galaxies which are visible only in the radio band of the electromagnetic spectrum and consist of relativistic, magnetised plasma. Previous research has suggested they might be caused by shockwaves from merging supermassive black holes or galaxies.
Now, a new study published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society proposes that the rings of light may actually be linked to superwind outflows from spiral host radio galaxies.
Researchers led by the University of Mumbai made their discovery with the help of the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory citizen science platform and the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescope operating at low frequencies (10 to 240 megahertz).
The source, designated RAD J131346.9+500320, lies nearly at redshift ~0.94 (when the universe was half its current age), making it both the most distant and the most powerful ORC known to date.
It also has not one but two intersecting rings – only the second such example with this feature – sparking more questions than answers.
Dr Ananda Hota, founder of the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory for citizen science research, said: "This work shows how professional astronomers and citizen scientists together can push the boundaries of scientific discovery.
"ORCs are among the most bizarre and beautiful cosmic structures we've ever seen – and they may hold vital clues about how galaxies and black holes co-evolve, hand-in-hand."
RAD J131346.9+500320 is the first ORC discovered through citizen science and the first identified with the help of LOFAR.
LOFAR is a cutting-edge pan-European radio telescope, with hundreds of thousands of simple antennas spread across the Netherlands and partner stations in many European countries. Working together as one giant interferometer, it provides an exceptionally sharp and sensitive view of the sky at low radio frequencies.
It enables astronomers to look back billions of years to a time before the first stars and galaxies formed by surveying vast areas of the low-frequency radio sky.
Alongside the new ORC discovery, the RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory also found two other unusual cosmic giants.
The first, RAD J122622.6+640622, is a galaxy nearly three million light-years across – more than 25 times the size of our Milky Way. One of its powerful jets suddenly bends sideways, as if forced off course, and then blows a spectacular radio ring about 100,000 light-years wide.
The second, RAD J142004.0+621715, stretches across 1.4 million light-years and shows a similar ring of radio emission at the end of one of its jets, with another narrow radio jet on the other side of the host galaxy.
Both galaxies sit in crowded regions of space called galaxy clusters, where their jets likely interact with surrounding matter, million degree hot thermal plasma, which shapes these striking cosmic structures.
All three objects are found in galaxy clusters weighing about 100 trillion Suns, suggesting that interactions of relativistic magnetised plasma jets with the surrounding hot thermal plasma may help shape these rare rings.
Co-author Dr Pratik Dabhade, of the National Centre for Nuclear Research in Warsaw, Poland, said: "These discoveries show that ORCs and radio rings are not isolated curiosities – they are part of a broader family of exotic plasma structures shaped by black hole jets, winds, and their environments.
"The fact that citizen scientists uncovered them highlights the continued importance of human pattern recognition, even in the age of machine learning."
With upcoming facilities such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), astronomers expect many more ORCs to be uncovered.
At the same time, new optical surveys such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will provide the redshifts and environments of their host galaxies, helping to piece together how these mysterious rings form and evolve.
For now, the three new cosmic rings – discovered not by automated software but by sharp-eyed citizen scientists – represent an important step toward unlocking the secrets of these vast, puzzling structures.
ENDS
A still image from the animation of RAD J131346.9+500320.
Credit
RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India)
RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India)
Images & video
Caption: Optical RGB image from the Legacy Surveys, overlaid with radio emission in red from the LOFAR Two-Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS), showing the 'odd radio circle' (ORC) RAD J131346.9+500320.
Credit: RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India)
Caption: An artistic visualisation of the rare twin-ring ORC (RAD J131346.9+500320), expanding outward after an explosive event in the central galaxy.
Credit: RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India)
Caption: A still image from the animation of RAD J131346.9+500320.
Credit: RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India)
Further information
The paper ‘RAD@home discovery of extragalactic radio rings and odd radio circles: clues to their origins’ by Ananda Hota and Pratik Dabhade et all. has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staf1531.
Notes for editors
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Journal
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Article Title
RAD@home discovery of extragalactic radio rings and odd radio circles: clues to their origins
Article Publication Date
2-Oct-2025
Young rogue planet displays record-breaking ‘growth spurt’
Findings provide insights into the tumultuous infancies of such celestial bodies
Johns Hopkins University
video:
This artist’s animation shows Cha 1107-7626. Located about 620 light-years away, this rogue planet is about 5-10 times more massive than Jupiter and doesn’t orbit a star. The planet is eating up material from a disc around it and, using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have discovered that it is now doing so at a rate of six billion tonnes per second –– the fastest ever found for any kind of planet. This is illustrated shortly after the clip begins, where the flow of gas and dust from the disc onto the planet intensifies. The team suspects that strong magnetic fields could be funnelling material towards the planet, something only seen in stars before.
When the infalling material reaches the planet it heats up its surface, creating a bright hot spot. The X-shooter spectrograph on ESO’s VLT detected a marked brightening in mid-2025, and found a clear fingerprint that this was caused by infalling gas. The observations show that the planet is now accreting matter about 8 times faster than a few months before.
For more details, check: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2516/.
view moreCredit: ESO/L. Calçada, M. Kornmesser
A young rogue planet about 620 light-years away from Earth has experienced a record-breaking “growth spurt,” hoovering up some six billion tons of gas and dust each second over a couple of months.
A team of international researchers have explored changes in the planet’s growth and immediate surroundings. The observations provide insight into how rogue planets—free-floating planetary-mass objects that do not orbit stars—behave and grow in their infancy.
“We’ve caught this newborn rogue planet in the act of gobbling up stuff at a furious pace,” said senior co-author and Johns Hopkins Provost and Professor Ray Jayawardhana. “Monitoring its behavior over the past few months, with two of the most powerful telescopes on the ground and in space, we have captured a rare glimpse into the baby phase of isolated objects not much heftier than Jupiter.”
Jayawardhana added: “Their infancy appears to be much more tumultuous than we had realized.”
The findings were accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and are available online.
Located in the Chamaeleon constellation, the rogue planet Cha 1107-7626 is five to 10 times the mass of Jupiter. Like a young star, the planet is surrounded by a disk of dust and gas. When material from the disk spirals onto the central object, it grows through a process called accretion.
Observations taken with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope revealed how rapidly the rogue planet was accreting material. At its peak in August, the planet’s growth rate had shot up to six billion tons per second, about eight times greater than in the months prior.
“This is the strongest accretion episode ever recorded in a planetary-mass object,” said lead author VÃctor Almendros-Abad, an astronomer at the Palermo Astronomical Observatory of the National Institute for Astrophysics in Italy. “People may think of planets as quiet and stable worlds, but with this discovery we see that planetary-mass objects freely floating in space can be exciting places.”
Researchers found the planet’s magnetic field plays an important role in channelling material from the disk’s inner edge, as it does in young stars. Data from the James Web Space Telescope, a powerful observatory that can gather longer infrared wavelengths, showed the chemistry of the disk had changed. Water vapor was present during the growth spurt but not before.
“We’re struck by quite how much the infancy of free-floating planetary-mass objects resembles that of stars like the Sun,” said Jayawardhana. “Our new findings underscore that similarity, and imply that some objects comparable to giant planets form the way stars do, from contracting clouds of gas and dust accompanied by disks of their own, and they go through growth episodes just like newborn stars.”
Animation of the growth spurt in the rogue planet Cha 1107-7626 [VIDEO]
This artist’s animation shows Cha 1107-7626. Located about 620 light-years away, this rogue planet is about 5-10 times more massive than Jupiter and doesn’t orbit a star. The planet is eating up material from a disc around it and, using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have discovered that it is now doing so at a rate of six billion tonnes per second –– the fastest ever found for any kind of planet. The team suspects that strong magnetic fields could be funnelling material towards the planet, something only seen in stars before.
When the infalling material reaches the planet it heats up its surface, creating a bright hot spot. The X-shooter spectrograph on ESO’s VLT detected a marked brightening in mid-2025, and found a clear fingerprint that this was caused by infalling gas. The observations show that the planet is now accreting matter about 8 times faster than a few months before.
For more details, check: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2516/.
Credit
ESO/L. Calçada, M. Kornmesser
This artist’s impression shows Cha 1107-7626. Located about 620 light-years away, this rogue planet is about 5-10 times more massive than Jupiter and doesn’t orbit a star. It is eating up material from a disc around it and, using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have discovered that it is now doing so at a rate of six billion tonnes per second –– the fastest ever found for any kind of planet. The team suspects that strong magnetic fields could be funnelling material towards the planet, something only seen in stars.
When the infalling material reaches the planet it heats up its surface, creating a bright hot spot. The X-shooter spectrograph on ESO’s VLT detected a marked brightening in mid-2025, and found a clear fingerprint that this was caused by infalling gas. The observations show that the planet is now accreting matter about 8 times faster than a few months before.
Credit
ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Article Title
Discovery of an Accretion Burst in a Free-Floating Planetary-Mass Object
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