Citizen scientists have found several new "odd radio circles<" or ORCs, in distant, enormous galaxy clusters — and through their discoveries, scientists are learning more about how these huge ring-like structures form.
ORCs were first identified only six years ago, in 2019, by Anna Kapinska of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory while perusing observations made by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP). ORCs are huge, up to 50 times larger than our Milky Way galaxy, which itself is about 100,000 light-years across. They are invisible at optical, infrared and X-ray wavelengths, their ghostly structures detectable only by radio telescopes.
