A Pair of Golden Cosmic Hoops: The Universe’s Most Dazzling Mystery

Citizen scientists have spotted what looks like a pair of unimaginably immense glowing golden hoops suspended in space — a cosmic phenomenon so rare and beautiful that scientists are calling it one of the most extraordinary sights in the universe.

These mysterious structures, officially known as odd radio circles or ORCs, appear as enormous ring-shaped halos made of charged gas, glowing in radio light. The newly discovered example — actually two intersecting rings — is the most distant and most powerful ORC ever found. If you could see this phenomenon with the naked eye, it would resemble a pair of fiery dangling earrings floating nearly 7.5 billion light-years away.

Each ring is truly colossal, stretching about a million light-years across, or roughly 10 to 20 times the size of our Milky Way galaxy. Yet despite their scale, these cosmic “hoops” are incredibly faint and can only be detected using specialized radio telescopes.

What makes this discovery even more exciting is how it happened: through the efforts of everyday people. The double-ringed ORC, known by its astronomical name RAD J131346.9+500320, was first spotted by citizen scientists working with India’s RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory. Volunteers comb through radio telescope data, flagging anything that looks unusual. Their sharp eyes caught this remarkable formation, later confirmed by Europe’s Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), the world’s largest radio telescope of its kind.

Their findings were published earlier this month in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Scientists are still unsure exactly what causes ORCs to form. Some theories suggest they are enormous shockwaves triggered by explosive events at the centers of galaxies — perhaps outbursts from supermassive black holes. Others think they might be “echoes” from ancient jets of high-energy particles that once blasted out from those black holes, reigniting old clouds of gas to create glowing rings.

Whatever their origin, ORCs are among the most mysterious and visually captivating structures in the cosmos. Only a handful have been discovered since the first one appeared in 2019, making each new find a precious clue in understanding how galaxies — and the black holes at their hearts — evolve over billions of years.

For jewelry lovers, it’s hard not to draw the comparison: these dazzling radio rings are the ultimate celestial statement pieces. Suspended across unimaginable distances, their golden glow evokes the timeless allure of hoop earrings — except these “accessories” are crafted by the universe itself, on a scale that outshines anything found on Earth.

As one astronomer put it, these rings are “among the most bizarre and beautiful cosmic structures we’ve ever seen.” In the vast darkness of space, they remind us that even the universe has a flair for sparkle.

Credit: Image by RAD@home Astronomy Collaboratory (India) (CC BY 4.0).