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James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

(www.smithsonianmag.com)
352 points instagraham | 11 comments | 31 Mar 25 10:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.849s | source | bottom
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keyle ◴[31 Mar 25 10:59 UTC] No.43533500[source]▶
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?

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fennecfoxy ◴[31 Mar 25 12:03 UTC] No.43533969[source]▶
That would be super cool to find out! And then it also begs the question, is there something at the center that unites the two poles? If so then what is it!

It would also imply that our whole universe is rotating - the only reason this happens on Earth is because of our planets rotation and the Coriolis effect.

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thunder-blue-3 ◴[31 Mar 25 12:16 UTC] No.43534093[source]▶
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.
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1. nashashmi ◴[31 Mar 25 12:22 UTC] No.43534147[source]▶
“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.

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2. rdtsc ◴[31 Mar 25 13:54 UTC] No.43535097[source]▶
> 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.

3. eightysixfour ◴[31 Mar 25 15:16 UTC] No.43536000[source]▶
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.
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4. nashashmi ◴[31 Mar 25 15:58 UTC] No.43536470[source]▶
It can be directly sucked into the center. A spiral implies a lateral movement plus a centripetal force
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5. soulofmischief ◴[31 Mar 25 17:43 UTC] No.43537656[source]▶
Ok but what is making the universe spin? This kind of theory is turtles all the way down.
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6. eightysixfour ◴[31 Mar 25 17:59 UTC] No.43537822{3}[source]▶
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.
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7. irrational ◴[31 Mar 25 20:32 UTC] No.43539605[source]▶
Is this getting into questions like "Where did the singularity come from?" and "What came before the singularity?". We don't have a way to answer these kinds of questions.
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8. soulofmischief ◴[31 Mar 25 23:24 UTC] No.43541105{3}[source]▶
My point is that it's not much helpful to say, "galaxies spin a certain way because the universe spins", because it shifts the problem without actually answering the "why". "Turtles all the way down" is a saying about such infinite regress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

And yes, I'm familiar with Dawkins' famous retort when someone asked how magnets repel things.

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9. thaumasiotes ◴[01 Apr 25 08:05 UTC] No.43544054{4}[source]▶
> And yes, I'm familiar with Dawkins' famous retort when someone asked how magnets repel things.

I'm not. I was unable to substantiate that anyone named Dawkins, Richard or otherwise, made or is popularly associated with a comment about magnets. What was the retort?

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10. soulofmischief ◴[01 Apr 25 10:07 UTC] No.43544953{5}[source]▶
I deeply apologize, it was late and I mixed up my Richards. :)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=36GT2zI8lVA

11. lolc ◴[01 Apr 25 13:15 UTC] No.43546436{4}[source]▶
The trick to having a galaxy is for mass to fall towards the black hole and miss it all the time.