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.