There’s something unusual lurking out in the depths of space: astronomers have discovered four faint objects that at radio wavelengths are highly circular and brighter along their edges. And they’re unlike any class of astronomical object ever seen before. The objects, which look like distant ring-shaped islands, have been dubbed odd radio circles (ORCs) for their shape and overall peculiarity.
It’s still unknown what could be causing the radio circles
Astronomers don’t yet know exactly how far away these ORCs are, but they could be linked to distant galaxies. All the objects were found away from the Milky Way’s galactic plane and are around one arcminute across - as a comparison, the Moon’s diameter is 31 arcminutes.