Printable View
CNN) -- A galaxy captured by the camera of the Hubble Space Telescope seems to be rotating in the direction opposite of what it should, astonished astronomers announced this week.
Most spiral galaxies have arms of gas and stars that trail behind as they turn. But this galaxy, known as NGC 4266, has two leading outer arms that point toward the direction of the galaxy's rotation, according to Hubble researchers.
Complete details here:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/0...axy/index.html
Wow... What does that mean? Are any theories gonna have to be re-thinked?... LMAO I like CNN's headline for this 'Goofy galaxy spins in wrong direction' :D
What does 'wrong direction' mean? I think those bastards pseudo-scientists should return to kindergarten and learn to write and read again!!!
Sort of like when they found out planets rotate differently. Also the moons do not all rotate on horizontal plane. Take Triton for instance.
Wrong direction means that instead of having trailing arms (like the spiral you get when you flush your toilet) it's arms are leading the spiral.
That would make it an english galaxy ???
i wonder if they considered the possiblilty of this actually being 2 different galaxy's; one larger but not as dence allowing the viewing of the smaller more dence one behind...that could explain the whole outer leading arms/inner trailing arm thing...of course i dont really know anything about this so its just a guess, and im sure is wrong for sever reasons;)
English galaxy... lol. I know this sounds funny... but perhaps the galaxy is spinning in the same direction they think it is, but the inside zones have rotated in respect to the outer zones by a respective difference of 180... What I mean is, if you take cocentric wheels, paint a dot on the outer rim of each at the same spot, and spin the inner wheels faster than the outside, at one point (just before they are aligned again) the 'point' of the curve described by the dots will be in the other direction...
Then again, if they can spot-check individual starts for their relative velocities due to red-shift... Hm. Maybe two big black holes which are in the tip of each arm, rotating and pulling other stars into a wake behind them?
Next possibility, they are not seeing the galaxy but his mirror image...
for instance it is known that we can see from earth two times the same galaxy (normal reflection and mirror image reflection) due to gravitation issues...
|---------------------------------------------------|
Earth-------------------Sun------------------OtherGalaxy
|________________________________|
hmmmm maybe there's 2 Great A'Tuin's each one pulling an arm in the wrong direction - ummm no wait thats the discworld >_<; Damn you Terry Pratchett you've warped my innocent lil mind :( hehe
v_Ln