‘Dancing ghosts:’ a new, deeper scan of the sky throws up surprises for astronomers

Scanning through data fresh off the telescope, we saw two ghosts dancing deep in the cosmos. We had never seen anything like it before, and we had no idea what they were. Several weeks later, we had figured out we were seeing two radio galaxies, about a billion light years away. In the center of each one is a supermassive black hole, squirting out jets of electrons that are bent into grotesque shapes by an intergalactic wind. Credit: Jayanne English and Ray Norris The two galaxies we think are