Galaxies

[dark knight]

Ok, I was just sat looking at some of the great images of the galaxies forum members have posted, when a question popped into my head. Why do all the galaxies appear to rotate in an anti clockwise direction as viewed from earth(presuming the dust trails swirling pattern indicates maybe centrifugal force). Is this a consistent feature of all galaxies? In fact is this a common feature across the Universe I wonder. Any one got any ideas on this?

Well maybe more than one question then, but guess that indicates I find it thought provoking...

[Pip]

That's a great question, I've no idea what the answer(s) are but It's certainly got me thinking.

Pip

[dark knight]

Oh no,,,the more I think about this, the more questions it raises. Could this mean a consistent force that affects the whole Universe is at play?

[Capricorn]

Spent a few months doing the Galaxyzoo classifications and I didn't notice a difference in clockwise/anticlockwise numbers. Did just over 50,000.

Also a spiral galaxy is clockwise viewed from say the top but anticlockwise from underneath. Same galaxy.

The you have the imaging and the inversion caused by the optics, or not depending on the set up.

Pretty sure that I have read references to the same galaxy but in the pictures one is clockwise while another is anticlockwise.

Wonder if it is that an anticlockwise picture is more striking for some odd reason and so that is the one most oftan reproduced.

[661-pete]

The simple answer is, that your observation is not correct.

Yes, I worked on Galaxy Zoo for a while, in the case of any face-on spirals that was a specific question they asked, maybe they were interested in any anisotropy. As far as I know there wasn't - certainly not amongst the galaxies I did.

Maybe it's just that a few of the most popular favourites (M51, M81, M101) happen to be anticlockwise. But this is far too small a sample to be statistically significant. Plenty of others are not. M61, M63, M74, M83, M99 are all 'clockwise' IIRC.

[dark knight]

Thanks for info guys. so it appears my observations are clouded due to the popularity of the images. Glad I didn't ask my next question then.

[dph1nm]

Galaxy Zoo found people classified significantly more anti-clockwise spirals than clockwise. BUT they then sneakily mirror-imaged some galaxies and found that people still classified more anti-clockwise amongst the mirror-imaged galaxies! So it cannot be a real effect, but it is something to do with how people do the classification.

NigelM

[dark knight]

Thanks Nigel, think I had a blonde moment when I asked the question. I just like things which are thought provoking, keeps my old mind ticking over lol...