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James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

#121

Post by ziofill »

permo-w wrote: post #63
keyle wrote: post #9

Potentially a very dumb question, but seeing the difference between cyclones and hurricane on earth (clock-wise, anti-clock-wise)... Does it mean that we are, potentially, on one of two poles(?) of the observable universe, if we're observing most galaxies around us rotating a certain way?

maybe this is a stupid question, but is it possible that the big bang simply had some kind of clockwise angular momentum to it? how different is that idea from the black hole cosmology concept? I don't really understand how the two fit together

It’s different because it’s simpler to assume that the total angular momentum of the universe is zero. If one black hole is rotating one way there must be other stuff rotating the other way to counterbalance. If you assume instead that the whole universe has angular momentum, well, where did that come from?

Re: James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

#122

Post by SkyBelow »

nabakin wrote: post #109
hhjinks wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 50/50 matter/anti-matter system could still house stable local pockets of mostly matter or anti-matter. The problem is, from what I understand, that the universe seems to have sprung into existence with way more matter than anti-matter, and we don't know why.

Could it be that the observable universe is one of these stable local pockets and the antimatter to balance it out is simply not observable to us?

Potentially, but it seems like an untestable hypothesis by itself.

Re: James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

#123

Post by rdtsc »

nashashmi wrote: post #80
thunder-blue-3 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following this news for the past couple of weeks-- in essence your statement is what they are hypothesizing, and that the "something at the center that unites the two poles" might be that we are within a black hole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_cosmology for the curious.

“The universe is an orb and that orb is rotating causing all the other stuff to spiral.” This was a long held theory of mine because I could not understand why a galaxy would spiral. I think there is a men in black scene, where an alien is rotating the universe globe like a toy they are playing.

> This was a long held theory of mine because I could not understand why a galaxy would spiral.

I think in general it would be unusual if they didn’t rotate. Any large non-uniform mass of gas or rocks when colliding will induce some rotation. What is odd though is that for galaxies we see more of them spinning one way than another.

Re: James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

#126

Post by vlovich123 »

jeffdn wrote: post #97
tiffanyh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own dumb question … How does cyclones/hurricanes relate to being “on one of two ‘poles’”? Do you mean hemisphere?

If all of the galaxies we see rotate the same way, are we “looking down” from a pole and seeing only those with the same rotation we have, as opposed to a more equatorial view that would be evenly split.

But the universe isn’t spherical. I’m not sure I understand this hypothesis as explained.

Re: James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

#127

Post by abecedarius »

kerkeslager wrote: post #88

Another potentially dumb question: what does it mean for a 3d body to rotate clockwise? Doesn't a clock, viewed from its back, turn counter-clockwise? So is this just from James Webb's perspective that they rotate clockwise?

Yeah, the headline is misleading for just that reason. But rotation in 3d does have an unambiguous orientation which we call right-handed or left-handed (the "right hand rule" if you're unfamiliar with this). I don't know which orientation our galaxy's rotation has, the article only says it's opposite the majority in this sample.

Re: James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

#128

Post by rdtsc »

ziofill wrote: post #121
permo-w wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe this is a stupid question, but is it possible that the big bang simply had some kind of clockwise angular momentum to it? how different is that idea from the black hole cosmology concept? I don't really understand how the two fit together

It’s different because it’s simpler to assume that the total angular momentum of the universe is zero. If one black hole is rotating one way there must be other stuff rotating the other way to counterbalance. If you assume instead that the whole universe has angular momentum, well, where did that come from?

> If you assume instead that the whole universe has angular momentum, well, where did that come from

Would that be same kind of question as “where did the Big Bang come from?”. That’s a lot of energy that came from somewhere as well seemingly for no good reason.

I also wondered immediately about dark matter; could it be that’s where the counter-balance of momentum went? Like most galaxies spin one way and most dark matter would then have to spin the opposite way.

I am not a physicist so this is all random guessing of course.

Re: James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

#129

Post by marcosdumay »

like_any_other wrote: post #81
IsTom wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume that they're talking about redshift.

Yes, but one half of a galaxy would get redshifted, and the other blueshifted, no matter which direction it spins in. So why would that change its overall brightness? (Though one of the papers notes that the tiny change in brightness this causes isn't enough to explain the large difference in spin directions)

The close and far sides get shifted too, and those have different brightness.

Re: James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

#130

Post by anal_reactor »

over_bridge wrote: post #35

Seems like we've got a few of these imbalances now where you'd expect 50:50 but instead it's skewed to one side where nature had a different idea Matter-antimatter ratio Left vs right handed molecules Now galaxy spin directions Maybe there are others I missed too

I honestly start thinking that the idea "everything should be symmetric in some way..." is completely wrong, and an example of wishful thinking "...because it would be cool if it did". Even if nature is in some way balanced on a scale large enough, it's extremely unlikely for us not to be in some local pocket. Most likely we're a part of some bigger structure that has certain properties, and this affects our perception of the laws of physics.
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