Large-scale asymmetry between clockwise and counterclockwise galaxies revisited

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 $\sim 1.7\cdot 10^5$ spiral galaxies from 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 to occur by chance is (P<4*10^-9), and the probability of an asymmetry axis to occur by mere chance is (P<1.4*10^-5).

AN, accepted

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Patterns of galaxy spin directions in SDSS and Pan-STARRS show parity violation and multipoles
• Spin Parity of Spiral Galaxies III -- Dipole Analysis of the Distribution of SDSS Spirals with 3D Random Walk Simulations
• Large-scale asymmetry in galaxy spin directions: evidence from the Southern hemisphere
• Using 3D and 2D analysis for analyzing large-scale asymmetry in galaxy spin directions