Honestly, we are still finding wildly new objects as we explore the sky. Every time we turn on a new kind of telescope – boom! Awesome new mystery. And some of those mysteries are super weird-looking.

In the first deep sky search with the brand new Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), astronomers found what they are calling “Dancing Ghosts.” This discovery was released as part of a new radio map of the sky. According to lead researcher Ray Norris: When we first saw the ‘dancing ghosts’ we had no idea what they were. After weeks of work, we figured out we were seeing two ‘host’ galaxies, about a billion light-years away. In their centers are two supermassive black holes, squirting out jets of electrons that are then bent into grotesque shapes by an intergalactic wind.

There is still a lot to learn about this weird-looking system, but it’s good to know it’s not ghosts, and there is new science for people to explore.

More Information

Western Sydney Unversity press release