Overview
- The object, RAD J131346.9+500320, consists of two intersecting radio rings embedded in a diffuse halo about 2.6 million light-years across.
- Each ring spans roughly 1 million light-years, and the system lies at a distance of about 7 billion light-years.
- It is the most distant and most radio-luminous ORC reported to date, with an estimated 2.27 × 10^26 W/Hz—around 100 times brighter than previous examples.
- A galaxy located at the rings’ intersection is a candidate source, with hypotheses including merger-driven shocks, supermassive black-hole mergers, or interactions between jets, winds, and relic plasma.
- Two additional ring features associated with radio jets in a dense cluster support an interaction scenario, and the team urges multiwavelength, higher-resolution follow-up to test the origins.