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Citizen Scientists Discover Distant, Powerful Radio Circles

10/8/2025

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Summary

Citizen Scientists Discover

A new odd radio circle, RAD J131346.9+500320, located seven billion light-years away, is the most powerful and distant example of its class.
Citizen scientists through the RAD@home project made the discovery, underscoring the value of human observation in astronomy.
Two additional ORCs were identified, one spanning three million light-years and the other 1.4 million light-years, both in massive galaxy clusters.

Summary

Astronomers Identify Black Hole

Astronomers identify RACS J0320-35, a supermassive black hole about a billion solar masses, 12.8 billion light-years away.
Chandra X-ray Observatory shows it emits more X-rays than any black hole in the universe's first billion years.
James Webb Space Telescope images reveal M87's jet structure in detail.
Event Horizon Telescope detects a magnetic-field flip around M87*.
PBC J2333.9-2343 shows unexpected activity.

History

Historical Context

In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered cosmic microwave background radiation, providing crucial evidence for the Big Bang theory and establishing the universe's age at approximately 13.8 billion years. Their findings, which earned them the 1978 Nobel Prize, marked a pivotal moment in cosmology, influencing ongoing research into cosmic phenomena, including distant radio circles and supermassive black holes.

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Citizen Scientists Discover

A new odd radio circle, RAD J131346.9+500320, located seven billion light-years away, is the most powerful and distant example of its class.
Citizen scientists through the RAD@home project made the discovery, underscoring the value of human observation in astronomy.
Two additional ORCs were identified, one spanning three million light-years and the other 1.4 million light-years, both in massive galaxy clusters.

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