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Characteristics of clockwise and counterclockwise spiral galaxies
Author(s) -
Hoehn C.,
Shamir L.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
astronomische nachrichten
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.394
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1521-3994
pISSN - 0004-6337
DOI - 10.1002/asna.201311955
Subject(s) - clockwise , physics , photometry (optics) , astrophysics , galaxy , spiral galaxy , astronomy , optics , stars , amplitude
We compared measurements of 126 501 spiral galaxies to test whether the photometry of galaxies that rotate clockwise is different from the photometry of galaxies that rotate counterclockwise for the purpose of testing whether there is a link between photometry and spin direction of galaxies. The rotation directionality of the galaxies was determined by converting the galaxy image to its radial intensity plot, and then the galaxies in each 30° RA sector were separated into clockwise and counterclockwise rotating galaxies. The mean and standard deviation of SDSS DR7 photometric attributes of clockwise and counterclockwise rotating galaxies were then compared. The results show no significant difference between galaxies that rotate clockwise and galaxies that rotate counterclockwise. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)