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Spiral Galaxy Spins the Wrong Way

Posted by chrisd on from the galactic-spirograph dept.

Ant writes: "The New Scientist has an article about a galaxy in the constellation Centaurus is puzzling astronomers by spinning in the wrong direction. NGC 4622 has bright twisting arms containing newborn stars and lies 111 million light years away."

3 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wrong way? by taion · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You should read the article more carefully before you comment next time.

    If you did, you'd clearly have noticed that the article said that the outer spiral arms pointed in the direction that they were rotating, and that was the peculiar aspect of this galaxy, not the actual direction of rotation itself.

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    Floccinaucinihilipilification - the action or habit of judging something to be worthless
  2. Re:Wrong way? by ASCIIMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think the oddity here is that it appears to be spinning counter to the direction its arms are swept, although its rotation could possibly be explained by a collision or combination with another galaxy.

  3. Re:CNN Article by Telemakhos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Someone should shoot the CNN editor who came up with the headline: "Goofy galaxy spins the wrong way"