Spiral galaxies

paul michael · Post by **paul michael** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 6:55 pm

Question. Why is it that spiral galaxies all seem to spin or rotate in the same direction ? Is this a fundamental property of the universe or am I mistaken in thinking this ?

BMAONE23 · Post by **BMAONE23** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 8:09 pm

Direction of spin to spiral galaxies is dependant upon your point of view of the galaxy in question. If you view a spiral galaxy from above, it will appear to spin in one direction. if you view it from below, it will appear to spin in the other direction. But it still spinning in only one direction. The only way to determine if they all spin in the same direction would require determining if they posess polar magnetic attributes and then determine the direction of spin relative to their "North magnetic pole".

In this image
http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/ima ... or+Surveys.
near the lower left corner, there appear to be a pair of interacting spiral galaxies, and although they seem to be affecting each other they also look like they're rotating in the same direction.

Pete · Post by **Pete** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:56 am

BMAONE23's got it: direction of rotation is dependent on how the galaxy happens to be oriented relative to us. There was a discussion here a couple of months back about the very same topic: http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... php?t=2567

P.S. dayum, that's a long URL