An international team of astronomers has discovered a strange cosmic object in our galaxy that they have named Teleios, a Greek word meaning “perfect,” since the object has an almost perfectly circular shape, something extremely unusual in the universe.

The discovery, made thanks to observations by the Australian ASKAP telescope, revealed that Teleios is so symmetrical that it has surprised scientists, who still don’t know its origin or how it has managed to maintain its perfect circular shape.

What they have found is basically a gigantic plasma bubble floating in space with a diameter between 14 and 48 light-years (depending on its exact distance from Earth) and located about 2,200 or 7,700 light-years away from us in a region relatively distant from the main plane of the Milky Way.

An Almost Perfect Circle in the Sky

What most intrigues researchers is its spherical shape, since most supernova remnants tend to be irregular, like scattered patches resulting from asymmetric explosions and the shock with surrounding interstellar material. But Teleios is 95.4% round, making it one of the most symmetrical objects of its kind ever discovered in our galaxy.

Teleios object milky way sphrical plasma
image of Teleios and the surrounding environment showing the Galactic plane (top) with a zoomed-in inset of the same image (middle right). Credit: M. D. Filipović et al.

Scientists are considering several theories to explain this shape and its low radio wave brightness (another of its unusual characteristics): that it expanded in a region of space with very little surrounding matter, which could have allowed it to maintain its circular shape without distortions. That it is a rare type of supernova resulting from a singular, symmetric explosion. Or that we are actually viewing it from an angle that makes it appear rounder than it really is.

They also haven’t been able to determine its age. If it is 2,200 light-years away, it could be less than 1,000 years old, meaning it would be relatively young. But if it is 7,700 light-years away, it could be over 10,000 years old and would have survived a long time without losing its perfect shape.

Interestingly, there are no historical records of a supernova in that part of the sky, so if it is young, the explosion went unnoticed from Earth.

Also, when a massive star explodes, it usually leaves behind a dense core, such as a neutron star or a black hole. But astronomers haven’t found a trace of these objects at the center of Teleios, so it might be a type of supernova that tends to completely destroy the star without leaving visible remnants.

But there are more things that don’t add up. Teleios doesn’t emit X-rays, which is unusual if it were a supernova remnant. There are also no clear signs in visible or infrared light, ruling out the possibility of it being a planetary nebula (remnants of smaller stars) or another type of object. And the weakness of its radio signal seems to indicate that it lies in a very calm environment, far from the galaxy’s turbulent regions.

Scientists hope to study it in more detail using more powerful telescopes, such as the future Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, to find clues about its origin and evolution.

SOURCES

Miroslav D. Filipovic, Zachary J. Smeaton, et al., Teleios (G305.4-2.2) — the mystery of a perfectly shaped new Galactic supernova remnant. arXiv:2505.04041v1 [astro-ph.HE]. doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2505.04041

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