Weird radio circles? New study explains phenomenon discovered in space

A team of scientists in mid-2019 They detected strange radio circles (ORCs) in the farthest reaches of space, but knew next to nothing about what they observed. In a new study published in the scientific journal Nature, researchers conducted a new analysis detailing some of the properties of these mysterious radio circles.

Based on data collected during the first observation of the phenomenon, scientists note that these circles are characterized by huge shells formed by wind flow from nearby galaxies. The strong winds were likely caused by explosive cosmic events such as supernovae. These are galaxies that have exploded or are in the middle of a massive star explosion..

A large amount of cosmic gas is produced during a supernova explosion, but this gas becomes much larger when several stars explode simultaneously. These collective eruptions can cause powerful wind flows that can carry gas very far at speeds of up to 2,000 kilometers per second.

“These galaxies are really interesting. They form when two large galaxies collide. The merger pushes all the gas into a very small region, causing an intense burst of star formation. Large stars burn rapidly and when they die, they expel their gas like wind,” he said in the US. Astrophysicist Alison Coil of the University of California, San Diego.

Radio circles in space

This gas is pushed by winds and forms a circular flow that resembles planetary nebulae or supernova remnants. Scientists have also discovered that at the center of each ORC lies a central galaxy that expands outward from the circle. They also discovered that ORC 4, as the radio ring is called, is in a region of stars up to six billion years old; That is, it may have emerged after a burst of star formation that occurred a long time ago.

According to the research, some of these ORCs can be up to hundreds of kiloparcers wide; Each kiloparserc is equivalent to a distance of 3,260 light years.. They also noticed that galactic winds from the circles could last up to 200 million years before ending completely. The researchers studied the issue based on data collected by the WM Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii.

“For this to work you need to have a high mass flow rate, meaning you need to be expelling large amounts of material very quickly. And the surrounding gas just outside the galaxy needs to have a low density, otherwise it would shock into stagnation. Those are the two basics.” factor. It turns out that the galaxies we studied have these high mass flow rates. They are rare, but they do exist. I believe this really indicates that they are due to some type of ORC. galactic winds are flowing,” Coil adds.

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