Why record the galaxy rotation?

[zookeeperKevin]

Heya,

The way to get angular momentum from a cloud that starts with zero angular moment is something like this: if one fragment of the cloud starts rotating one way, and another exactly the opposite way, then the total angular momentum is still zero. However, you've produced two rotating objects. Naturally nature is far more messy.

[FermatsBrother]

Hi Dave - Sounds good to me !
What's moving thro' ?

FB

Good point. How about this for a suggestion.
  After inflation high energy particles are winking in & out of existence, but during their brief 'time' their pathways/wakes are interacting within a plasma filled medium creating eddies.(Would this be a suitable enviroment to support vortices ?). The vortex that are able to maintain their state through to the cooling period could then influence the rotation of the 'clumping' heavier particles.

Hi Dave - If you're considering everything on the small scale, then all these small rotating "eddys" will end up randomised again.
I can't envisage a galaxy sized rotating system resulting from zillions of small ones coming together in just the right way!
The only picture I can visualise from your original proposal, is for a galaxy sized object moving thro' your big gas cloud producing two counter-rotating (to keep Kevin happy) gas clouds, which hopefully might condense into spiral galaxies at some future time.
Of course, what would probably happen in such a situation, is that the gas cloud will simply be absorbed by the galaxy. Hence my original question to you .

Fermats Brother

[kfsone]

What visible evidence would we have in what we are observing if the oiginal singularity from which the big bang expanded had itself been rotating and/or in motion?

[Dave]

 Cheers FB, I was stretching things a tad.
Still got a fancy to pick over this though.

[Dave]

Hi Dave - If you're considering everything on the small scale, then all these small rotating "eddys" will end up randomised again.

  Aaargh!! A penny teeters. What if the scale is increased, to extremely large?

[GeoHani]

Based on what I've read there are many things that can cause objects to spin and/or rotate. And all of them have completely random results and therefore there is no bias to CW or ACW rotation?

[zookeeperChris]

The crucial here is that all are random on large enough scales; the sixth Galaxy Zoo paper suggests that there is evidence (not yet enough to be completely convincing) that nearby galaxies are more likely to be rotating in the same sense.

[Alice]

For more about galaxy spins, as well as that paper, click here.

[grampowie]

Regardless of whether spiral galaxies rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise from our point of view, is there evidence that they all rotate with the arms trailing (as in a child's pinwheel) or, perhaps visually bizarre, do any of them rotate with the arms leading the way through space?
 
And, a tangentially related question, do spherical galaxies (or large star clusters) rotate?  For example, have red or blue shifts been detected for the stars at or near their edges?

Grampowie

[Half65]

If I remember well and if I understand your question there are few galaxies that rotate inverted respect to what appear visually, but I'm not an expert or an astronomer.

[Alice]

Welcome to the zoo Grampowie, glad you posted your question

And, a tangentially related question, do spherical galaxies (or large star clusters) rotate?  For example, have red or blue shifts been detected for the stars at or near their edges?

Grampowie

Elliptical galaxies - the football or rugby ball shaped ones - have stars that rotate in any old way. Each one seems to be on its own course, and not all the rotations are perfect circles or ovals either if I understand correctly! I think that backs up the hypothesis that ellipticals are old mergers - totally chaotic. And also this chaos would have slammed all the available gas into the rest of the gas, and created any more stars that could be - hence no gas left in most ellipticals.

[rotar]

Welcome to the zoo Grampowie, glad you posted your question

And, a tangentially related question, do spherical galaxies (or large star clusters) rotate?  For example, have red or blue shifts been detected for the stars at or near their edges?

Grampowie

Elliptical galaxies - the football or rugby ball shaped ones - have stars that rotate in any old way. Each one seems to be on its own course, and not all the rotations are perfect circles or ovals either if I understand correctly! I think that backs up the hypothesis that ellipticals are old mergers - totally chaotic. And also this chaos would have slammed all the available gas into the rest of the gas, and created any more stars that could be - hence no gas left in most ellipticals.

You can read "Football by MARADONA"

[cominova]

A thought on the rotation. Since galaxies are observed at various angles to our sight, might they also be tumbling through space as they spin? This would allow for all of the angles and the clock/anti-clock rotation that we observe.

[Alice]

Hi everyone! As you see, this is an old topic - but to have it in here hopefully will make it easier to find as well as logical.

This is what we were doing in our early days . . .

[bkat2d11]

The biggest picture is important; galaxies that rotate clockwise or anticlockwise leave an impressionable characteristics that the Universe is a medium in which this unknown medium causes the galaxies to rotate as they move through space as all galaxies are really charged particles at the sub-atomic level. So as charged particles move through conductors on earth they create magnetic fields. I postulate that this magnetic field interacts with this medium and that contributes to galactic spin as the bodies move through space.