The backflow plasma originating from the hotspots in MRC 2011-298 is found to redirect towards the minor axis, where the minimum resistance of the gas allows the formation of the wings.

[9] In the buoyant backflow model,[8][11] the wings plasma of MRC 2011-298 are led by the buoyancy force which evolves at subsonic speeds.

This ejects plasma outflows at supersonic speed along the steepest pressure gradient (i.e. the minor axis), to produce more extended wings.

[12] Further observations found MRC 2011-298 contains gas present inside a stellar shell deflecting the radio jets and causing the wings to be formed.

These stellar shells are form of rotating arc-shaped structures roughly found in ~10% of local elliptical galaxies, that are aligned with their optical major axis.

[13] Looking through jet interaction in Centaurus A and the stellar shells, finds a similar phenomenon in X-shaped radio galaxies[14] where they contain traces of neutral and molecular hydrogen with an estimated mass of MH ≃ 4 × 107 M⊙ and average density of nH ≃ 4 × 10−2 cm−3.