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James Webb Space Telescope reveals that most galaxies rotate clockwise

(www.smithsonianmag.com)
352 points instagraham | 1 comments | 31 Mar 25 10:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.47s | source
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vincnetas ◴[31 Mar 25 12:10 UTC] No.43534038[source]▶
But rotation direction depends on the observer. If i see galaxy spinning clockwise, this means someone observing galaxy from behind it sees it rotating counter clockwise. So are we just located so in the universe that we see 2/3 spinning clockwise and another counter?
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rob74 ◴[31 Mar 25 13:13 UTC] No.43534679[source]▶
It just occured to me that "rotation direction" is a pretty coarse measurement. Actually, you could look at the angle of a galaxy relative to ours, where (let's say) 0° is viewed exactly from "above" (rotating clockwise), 180° is viewed exactly from "below" (rotating counterclockwise), 90°/270° is viewed side-on etc. How about some stats based on this parameter?
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1. q_andrew ◴[31 Mar 25 20:50 UTC] No.43539825[source]▶
This is actually why rotational math is more complicated in 3d than you would expect. It's something game developers get used to, because accessing and modifying a rotation requires knowing what the orientation is relative to a fourth axis. That's what a quaternion is. In the situation of this story, it's in reference to the milky way's vertical axis.