2020/03/01 by Lior Shamir
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Asymmetry #Clockwise #Declination #Dipole #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Optics #Physics #Right ascension #Sky #Spiral galaxy #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.IM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/asna.202013745
AN, accepted
openalex publication_date 2020/03/01 · arxiv created 2020/04/06 · arxiv updated 2020/06/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract The ability of digital sky surveys to collect and store very large amounts of data provides completely new ways to study the local universe. Perhaps one of the most provocative observations reported with such tools is the asymmetry between galaxies with clockwise and counterclockwise spin patterns. Here, I use ∼1.7 × 10 5 spiral galaxies from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and sort them by their spin patterns (clockwise or counterclockwise) to identify and profile a possible large‐scale pattern of the distribution of galaxy spin patterns as observed from Earth. The analysis shows asymmetry between the number of clockwise and counterclockwise spiral galaxies imaged by SDSS and a dipole axis. These findings largely agree with previous reports using smaller datasets. The probability of the differences between the number of galaxies occurring by chance is p < 4 × 10 −9 , and the probability of an asymmetry axis occurring by mere chance is p < 1.4×10 −5 .