space Cosmic Scale

Astronomers found another 'Odd Radio Circle'—it's a massive mystery ring of energy millions of light-years wide.

March 24, 2026

Original Paper

ASKAP EMU detection of an Odd Radio Circle (ORC) candidate: J094412-751016 (Anglerfish)

M. D. Filipović, Z. J. Smeaton, A. C. Bradley, R. Kothes, E. J. Crawford, A. Ahmad, T. Akahori, L. Barnes, C. Bordiu, S. Dai, S. Duchesne, Y. A. Gordon, N. Gupta, A. M. Hopkins, B.s. Koribalski, S. Lazarević, D. Leahy, K. J. Luken, P. J. Macgregor, A. Mailvaganam, S. Mehmood, R. P. Norris, N. Novaretti, L. A. F. Park, S. Riggi, C. J. Riseley, G. Rowell, M. Sasaki, S. S. Shabala, S. Taziaux, N. F. H. Tothill, D. Urošević, V. Velović, T. Vernstrom, J. L. West, T. Zafar

arXiv · 2603.21467

The Takeaway

Nicknamed 'Anglerfish,' this is only the latest of a handful of these ghostly structures ever seen. These massive radio halos appear to be the result of cataclysmic explosions from the hearts of galaxies, leaving behind a 'smoke ring' so large it can dwarf entire galactic groups.

From the abstract

We report diffuse extended radio-continuum emission spatially coinciding with the IR source WISEA J094409.17-751012.8, and a semi-variable star, V687 Carinae. We use 944 MHz radio data from the large-scale Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) survey to analyse this diffuse emission (EMU J094412-751016), which we nickname "Anglerfish". We investigate if the spatially correlated infrared (IR) source, WISEA J094409.17-751012.8, is physically related to Anglerfish. The IR colours of WISEA J094409.

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