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Objects exploding outward into a vacuum can be spherical. Stellar explosions happen all the time in many corners of the universe. As material from a stellar e
by natch 6y ago
Objects exploding outward into a vacuum can be spherical.
Stellar explosions happen all the time in many corners of the universe.
As material from a stellar explosion expands outward and impacts gases in the neighborhood, radio waves are emitted from the molecules energetically impacting each other.
Naturally, the shape of the region from which such radio frequency emissions would originate would correspond to the spherical shape of the explosion.
I don't know why this is being written up as something mysterious. OK, maybe I do know why. Clickbait. Any time you can make astronomy look like there may be a hint of aliens, it's tantalizing and leads to clicks. I don't blame the scientists for this… it's the news headline writers.
Unfortunately working in favor of the clickbait is the fact that certainly scientists won't say that the above simple explanation is definitively what is happening, because it hasn't been tested yet. But you can bet they are looking into simple possibilities like this. And no aliens or Dyson spheres are required.
- 867-5309 6y ago>Could they be supernova remnants, the clouds of debris left behind when a star in our galaxy explodes? No. They are far from most of the stars in the Milky Way and there are too many of them.
- blackhaz 6y agoNote SNR explanation is ruled out exclusively because of ORCs' high galactic latitudes. Based on the appearance of these objects my bet is that they are high-latitude SNRs indeed.
- natch 6y agoThe article states (correctly or incorrectly, I don't know) that they don’t even know if these are in or near our galaxy.
- natch 6y agoThey state specifically that these might not be in the Milky Way.
- sneak 6y ago> I don't know why this is being written up as something mysterious. OK, maybe I do know why. Clickbait. It's being written up as something mysterious because they don't know what's causing it. Your claim that there is a simple explanation and that they're lying when they say they don't know the cause is not substantiated.
- natch 6y agoBeing aware of and mentioning a simple possible and unproven explanation is perfectly compatible with not knowing whether the explanation is valid or not. In other words you don’t have to know what caused it, to enumerate some possibilities. I did not and would not claim that my simple explanation is true. Just that it could be, and that possibility is not being covered in the article, which instead opts for drama.