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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

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just thinking about this infinite recursion gives me the mental equivalent of a stack overflow.

I don't think it is infinite - each universe can only have that mass/energy that fell into the outer black hole in the parent universe. At some level you'll inevitably have black holes with universes that do not have enough mass to form another inner black hole.

Unless, although there's no reason to currently believe this, the energy requirements for physics are relative within each black hole, sort of (but not strictly) like how the speed of light is relative for all observers. And we can get a little crazier, and imagine a meta universe that is sort of like a Klein bottle in that it doesn't just recurse all the way down but somehow folds back into itself. Again, no current reason to believe anything like this but it's a mind-boggling to visualize.

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm under the impression that we really have no clue what's going on inside of black holes, so the most we can really say with confidence is that when two black holes collide they appear from the outside to now be a single black hole.

It’s a reasonable assumption. If two solar masses collide, their masses tend to combine[^]. Just “look” at planets that smash into each other. Ergo, a more massive black hole. [^]: Ignoring ejections. But black holes also don’t “eject” mass. Or maybe they do? Hawking Radiation is weird.

Actually, they can shoot out relativistic jets at the poles. https://www.nustar.caltech.edu/page/relativistic-jets

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

#173

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.

Ok but what is making the universe spin? This kind of theory is turtles all the way down.

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

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t it have to spiral? Think of the gravity well, anything not orbiting is just falling. The only things not racing towards the black hole at the center of the galaxy are the ones that are orbiting.

It can be directly sucked into the center. A spiral implies a lateral movement plus a centripetal force

Right, I guess what I am saying is if it didn't spiral, it wouldn't be a galaxy for "long." It would just be a super massive black hole.

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

#176
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?

Which also implies the universe, or our section of it, is rotating. Which raises the question: where did that angular momentum come from?

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

#177
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

> That’s a lot of energy that came from somewhere as well seemingly for no good reason.

I never finished the book, but this reminds me of God's Debris by Scott Adams which explores a philosophy of pandeism (where God annihilated itself and became the universe).

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

#178
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?

IIRC the Virgo Supercluster is gravitationally bound. Pure speculation but my guess would be that galaxies are revolving around the center of the Virgo Supercluster and this creates the galaxy-level Coriolis effect.

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a reasonable assumption. If two solar masses collide, their masses tend to combine[^]. Just “look” at planets that smash into each other. Ergo, a more massive black hole. [^]: Ignoring ejections. But black holes also don’t “eject” mass. Or maybe they do? Hawking Radiation is weird.

Actually, they can shoot out relativistic jets at the poles. https://www.nustar.caltech.edu/page/relativistic-jets

But there, the black hole is ejecting other mass near it, not its own.
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