must be something left out, because a galaxies r/l rotation is dependent on which side it is bieng viewed from, and since the are unlabled as to face and back, what is the basis for the handedness of something spinning in the void, with presumably most of the galaxies tilted at every angle and orientation possible other than aligned with ours. and 263* galaxies is zero galaxies when divided by the minimum number of galaxies, it's not a significant sample * number in study

The linked article is written in an absurd way. Clockwise is not a fundamental measurement, it's relative to the viewer.

What the original article explains, is that this is relative to our observer point of view (obviously).

It's still very interesting, since, disregarding any potential interaction in our local group, randomness was expected and we should see around 50/50 rotating either way unless one of the explanations came into play.

TIL the universe has a specific "up" direction to even call things counterclockwise. I guess I should have already known this from Star Trek's quadrants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system

Is this a robust finding? I heard something about this apparent discrepancy a week or so ago, and it was dismissed as probably just an artifact of dodgy classification and the paper's author was a bit of a kook, a computer scientist who was delving into cosmology to find evidence of the simulation hypothesis.

approximately 60% of the 263 galaxies examined were found to rotate clockwise, while about 40% rotated counterclockwise. The study’s results have a significance level of approximately 3.39 sigma, indicating a moderate chance that the findings could be due to random fluctuations

I used to read a lot about the history of science as a kid.

The one thing that stuck with me is how frequently things we believe to be true are disproven.

This does not surprise me:

> “If that is indeed the case, we will need to re-calibrate our distance measurements for the deep universe,”

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?

I was disappointed that the article only once mentioned “from our perspective” in relation to the spin of galaxies. One of the most fascinating things that you first learn about when you try to understand relativity, is the fact that there is no “still” point in the entire universe. Out in space, the point in space one foot in front of your space suit’s helmet can be called still by you, but it is just as reasonable to call a rock racing by you at a million miles an hour the central still point, where all other motion in the universe can be measured against. Because there is no absolute still anywhere. And when you understand that, that’s when all these cool concepts can then be described, related to time changes that happen between two locations when the relative speed difference between the two objects or locations approaches the speed of light. (So you can return from your trip to Alpha Centuri and meet your great great grandson who is older than you.)

And just like there is no still point in the universe, there is no up or down. So yes, it may be true that, IF you select a couple of arbitrary points in the universe to be up and down, THEN you can count how any galaxies spin left vs right. And it is way cool to find out that it doesn’t appear to be 50/50, and to wonder about why. But I think the article author did the readers a disservice by glossing over the “no up or down” fact.

Time and time again, we are beginning to come to the realization that our entire observable universe is not the whole picture, and we are almost certainly seeing only a localized portion of a much larger and grander universe.

They analysed only a small patch of sky, which could have a local relative rotation compared to our region of space.

Real science will be when they survey the entire sky, with many small deep-field images.