MeerKAT discovery of 164 compact radio rings toward the Galactic Plane
arXiv:2509.20289 · doi:10.1093/mnras/staf1667
Abstract
We report the discovery of 164 compact (radius < 1 arcmin) radio rings using MeerKAT 1.3 GHz data from the SARAO MeerKAT Galactic Plane Survey (l=2-60deg, 252-358deg, |b|<1.5deg) and the Galactic Centre mosaic, from a search aimed at identifying previously uncatalogued radio sources. Within this sample, approximately 19 per cent of the rings contain a central point radio source. A multiwavelength analysis reveals a striking diversity: about 40 per cent of the rings enclose an isolated infrared point source, 50 per cent exhibit an extended counterpart in the mid- or far-infrared, and several are only detected in the radio band. We found that 17 per cent of the rings in the sample are positionally coincident (within 5 arcsec) with known entries in SIMBAD, including unclassified infrared sources, spiral galaxies, young stellar objects and long-period variable candidates. Based on these matches and exploiting ancillary multiwavelength data and catalogues, we explore several formation scenarios for the rings, such as HII regions, planetary nebulae, mass-loss relics from evolved massive stars, supernova remnants, nova shells, galaxies, galaxy cluster lenses and odd radio circles. Tentative classifications are proposed for nearly 60 per cent of the sample. These results highlight the potential of MeerKAT to uncover previously undetected compact radio structures and, particularly, recover missing Galactic radio-emitting objects.
Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 24 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables
References in corpus (40)
- Gaia Data Release 3: Summary of the content and survey properties
- Science with ASKAP - the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder
- The 1.28 GHz MeerKAT Galactic Center Mosaic
- Spatial distribution of Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars and implications for the global population
- Galactic Supernova Remnant Candidates Discovered by THOR
- A catalogue of high-mass X-ray binaries in the Galaxy: from the INTEGRAL to the Gaia era
- On the Relationship of UC H II Regions and Class II Methanol Masers: I. Source Catalogs
- The GLASS-JWST Early Release Science Program. III. Strong lensing model of Abell 2744 and its infalling regions
- First release of the IPHAS Catalogue of New Extended Planetary Nebulae
- Unexpected Circular Radio Objects at High Galactic Latitude
- MeerKAT uncovers the physics of an Odd Radio Circle
- Discovery of a new extragalactic circular radio source with ASKAP: ORC J0102-2450
- Cosmography with Supernova Refsdal through time-delay cluster lensing: independent measurements of the Hubble constant and geometry of the Universe
- The Milky Way Project Second Data Release: Bubbles and Bow Shocks
- A global view on star formation: The GLOSTAR Galactic plane survey. II. Supernova Remnants in the first quadrant of the Milky Way
- A Statistical Analysis of Galactic Radio Supernova Remnants
- Mysterious Odd Radio Circle near the Large Magellanic Cloud -- An Intergalactic Supernova Remnant?
- Candidate radio supernova remnants observed by the GLEAM survey over and
- A Catalogue of Radio Supernova Remnants and Candidate Supernova Remnants in the EMU/POSSUM Galactic Pilot Field
- Odd Radio Circles and their Environment
- VLT/MUSE observations of SDSS J1029+2623: towards a high-precision strong lensing model
- Insights on the origin of ORCs from cosmological simulations
- Stellar variability in Gaia DR3. I. Three-band photometric dispersions for 145 million sources
- Discovery of warm and dense molecular gas surrounding the ring nebula G79.29+0.46
- Palomar/TripleSpec observations of {\it Spitzer}/MIPSGAL~24\mic\ circumstellar shells: unveiling the nature of their central sources
- The physical and chemical structure of Sagittarius B2 -- VI. UCHII regions in Sgr B2
- The Evolutionary Map of the Universe: A new radio atlas for the southern hemisphere sky
- Supernova Remnant Candidates Discovered by the SARAO MeerKAT Galactic Plane Survey
- Very Long Baseline Interferometry imaging of the advancing ejecta in the first gamma-ray nova V407 Cyg
- HI Galaxy Signatures in the SARAO MeerKAT Galactic Plane Survey -- II. The Local Void and its substructure
- High-resolution Very Large Array observations of 18 MIPSGAL bubbles
- Search for and Identification of Young Compact Galactic Supernova Remnants Using THOR
- The SARAO MeerKAT Galactic Plane Survey extended source catalogue
- A warm molecular ring in AG Car: composing the mass-loss puzzle
- High-resolution imaging of the evolving bipolar outflows in symbiotic novae: The case of the RSOphiuchi 2021 nova outburst
- MeerKAT reveals a ghostly thermal radio ring towards the Galactic Centre
- Discovery of Odd Radio Circles and Other Peculiars in the First Year of the EMU Survey using Object Detection
- Study of the Galactic radio sources in the SCORPIO survey resolved by ATCA at 2.1 GHz
- HI in and behind the Hubble Frontier Field Clusters: A Deep MeerKAT Pilot Search out to
- Evolutionary Map of the Universe: Detection and Analysis of the Shell Surrounding the Runaway Wolf-Rayet Star WR16