- #1
fbs7
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- 37
After much questioning and soul-searching I got my answers of why galaxies rotate, and for that I greatly thank the gurus in the forum (so I'll not forget: conservation of initial angular momentum, non-isotropic material scattering, slowdown of infalling materials and non-isotropic infalling of materials). Very complicated, yay :^) !
Then a new mystery came in! I have no idea what about paths of stars in an elliptical galaxy, but in a spiral galaxy all of them seem to rotate the same direction. That's awesome, given the distance the stars are from each other!
I understand that in liquid going down the drain - there are collisions between molecules, and the molecules are close together in the liquid, so 100 molecules going one way colliding with 1 molecule going the wrong way will bounce the one in the wrong way around, and eventually you have 101 molecules going a single way - more organization. It's the same thing as people trying to go against flow in a crowd, they are turned around.
But how about stars in a galaxy? These collisions (ie, iteration through gravity, don't mean a head-on collision) are quite different. If there are 100 stars going one way and 1 star going the wrong way, the result after iteration is a big, less organized mess with many stars going in odd directions, not a more organized system going nicely in a beautiful spiral.
So what mysterious and wonderful process works out to get almost all stars in a galaxy to rotate the same direction, instead of ending up in a chaotic mess with stars going all over the place?
Then a new mystery came in! I have no idea what about paths of stars in an elliptical galaxy, but in a spiral galaxy all of them seem to rotate the same direction. That's awesome, given the distance the stars are from each other!
I understand that in liquid going down the drain - there are collisions between molecules, and the molecules are close together in the liquid, so 100 molecules going one way colliding with 1 molecule going the wrong way will bounce the one in the wrong way around, and eventually you have 101 molecules going a single way - more organization. It's the same thing as people trying to go against flow in a crowd, they are turned around.
But how about stars in a galaxy? These collisions (ie, iteration through gravity, don't mean a head-on collision) are quite different. If there are 100 stars going one way and 1 star going the wrong way, the result after iteration is a big, less organized mess with many stars going in odd directions, not a more organized system going nicely in a beautiful spiral.
So what mysterious and wonderful process works out to get almost all stars in a galaxy to rotate the same direction, instead of ending up in a chaotic mess with stars going all over the place?