A new peer-reviewed study published this week in the journal Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices,
These radio waves are a unique phenomenon and which had no clear scientific explanation.
At the time of the discovery, the researchers were using Australia’s ASKAP radio telescope. unusual phenomenon observed by (Australian Square Mile Network Pathfinder) and named him “Weird Radio Circles” (or OCR, weird radio circleacronym in English) precisely because of its uniqueness.
Now, with the publication of the study and a new image captured by the Dark Energy Survey Astronomical Observation Project that overlays data from the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Meerkat radio telescope, scientists believe in two main theories that make up the waves circulars. Explains: They could be the remnants of a big explosion, Like the merger of two supermassive black holes, or one. result of sudden stellar explosion (star burst), Episodes in which millions of stars are suddenly born.
“The circles are likely to be large bursts of hot gas, about a million light-years from the central galaxy,” said Professor Ray Norris, from the University of West Sydney’s Faculty of Science, in his newspaper column. Conversation.
The researchers explain that the event of merging two black holes releases huge amounts of energy, enough to generate an ORC, but it is a starburst event. Also considered a possibility as such an event causes hot gases to escape from the Milky Way, Which will cause a circular shock wave.
“Black hole mergers and starburst events are rare, which is why orcs are so rare (only five have been reported so far),” he recalls.
Jordan Collier, a researcher at the Inter-University Institute for Data-Intensive Astronomy who compiled the meerkat data image, said in an interview with Australian science research organization CSIRO that astronomers should keep watching these strange radio circles for more clues. is required. on its origin.
“People often want to interpret their observations and show that they correspond to the best of our knowledge. For me, it’s more exciting to discover something new that challenges our current understanding,” said Collier.
until now, ORC detected only with radio telescopesScientists cannot capture the event using optical, infrared or X-ray telescopes.
“We need an even more sensitive instrument than Meerkat and ASKAP. Fortunately, the global astronomical community is building such an observatory – the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), an international effort with telescopes in South Africa and Australia.
See more in the report and video below: