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What causes most bodies in our galaxy to spin counter clockwise?

Posted on: September 3, 2007 - 10:51pm

CrimsonEdge

Posts: 499

Joined: 2007-01-02

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What causes *most* bodies in our galaxy to spin counter clockwise?

I know Venus spins slightly clockwise (which probably comes from a major impact) as well as some moons (triton and another I believe) to spin and revolve around their planets clockwise... but what is with this counter clockwise thing?

I know it deals with the conservation of angular momentum and tidal forces, but I'm sure there's more to it than that. So my questions are this.

1. Are there other galaxies that spin in other directions beside counter clockwise?

A. What causes them to spin thusly? Does it deal with the dormant super massive black holes in the middle of them?

II. If so why don't they all spin the same direction?

2. Does the big bang theory support this spinning? I really have no idea, so if someone could give me, in slight laymans terms, exactly what the big bang theory states (or any other theories really) and how it applies to this... if at all.

Sorry if I sound like a dunce.

Posted on: September 3, 2007 - 10:54pm #1

Cpt_pineapple

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CrimsonEdge wrote: A.

CrimsonEdge wrote:

A. What causes them to spin thusly? Does it deal with the dormant super massive black holes in the middle of them?
II. If so why don't they all spin the same direction?

Kepler's laws

Quote:

2. Does the big bang theory support this spinning? I really have no idea, so if someone could give me, in slight laymans terms, exactly what the big bang theory states (or any other theories really) and how it applies to this... if at all.
Sorry if I sound like a dunce.

No it doesn't. All the Big Bang is is the hyperinflation. It is the inflation of the initial energy which eventually turned into matter.

Posted on: September 3, 2007 - 11:16pm #2

CrimsonEdge

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Can Keplers laws be applied

Can Keplers laws be applied to much larger things, like galaxies? If so, then why are all galaxies not eliptical in shape?

Posted on: September 4, 2007 - 12:31am #3

Cernunnos

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Our solar system was formed

Our solar system was formed from a nebula (big cloud of stuff) this gas was spinning slowly and so as gravity caused the gas to collapse it formed a disk shape. Like making pizza base.

This is why the planets are in the same plane and why they spin in the same direction...the ones that don't probably had a few good thwacks as they/after they were being formed. Also note that as the spinning stuff condenses angular momentum is conserved so they spin faster. Try whirling something over your head on some string and adjusting the length of string.

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.