direction of spin of Galaxies, black holes, etc...?

Question

I know that your position on the Earth, northern or southern hemisphere, decides which way water spins going down a drain..... high pressure areas in weather spin one way, low pressure areas, another.... so.... what gives the galaxies and black holes their direction of spin?.... all the representations of the MilkyWay that I've seen show us spinning like a hurricane or low pressure area....

I realize it depends on where you are, looking at the galaxy, too.... if I'm looking 'down' on MilkyWay, it's spinning counter-clockwise, yes?... but what if I'm under it, looking up?...

ah, but if it's all moving away from everything else, there's a 'forward' and a backside?....

so, is this apparent motion from the original BANG?....

what, then, would we suppose, when we see a galaxy that is NOT spinning?...

but didn't it take a long time for galaxies to form after the Bang?... did the 'impetuous' survive that long?...

thank you Fox for straightening me out on the hemisphere foolishness... I looked it up, finally, and you are indeed correct!....

Answer 1

Looking at pictures of galaxies it appears that they all rotate the same way from our perspective..
Interesting thought.

Answer 2

Which way water spins going down a drain does NOT depend on being the northern or southern hemisphere -- that's a false urban legend. The shape and tilt of the tub, the spin of the water coming out of the faucet, any force you give the water -- these all account for 99.999% of the spin. Being in the north or south adds less than 0.001%. You need something 100's of miles across to be affected by the Earth's spin like that.

Galaxies spin because of an initial imbalance when they are formed. With enough material for billions of stars, it would be very odd indeed if it all came together to form a galaxy, without some spin in one direction or another. I would say the chances are 1 in 10^14, that a galaxy would have less spin than (for example) 1 rotation in 10 billion years.

Since there are about 10^12 galaxies in the visible universe,
that means that there is less than 1% chance that even 1 galaxy somewhere has no rotation.

Answer 3

I was just about to say: It depends on which side you are looking at.

Remember that galaxies don't really have an "up" or a "down", but I understand what you're asking. If you were looking "up" the direction of rotation would be the opposite.

Edit: Try to think of the expansion of the Universe in the following way: The "space" between everything is increasing. Basically there is a "backward"- a decrease in the amount of "space" as we look further back in time- which can be traced to the singularity that caused the Big Bang.

Edit 2: All galaxies have some form of rotation.

Edit3: Galaxies aren't actually formed by the "impetus" of matter traveling outward from the singularity, but rather by gravity.

Matter (in the form of hydrogen and helium atoms) began to form about 380 000 years after the Big Bang. Over the following several hundred million years more matter formed until there was a sufficient amount of it for gravitational collapse to occur. This is when larger objects were formed. The oldest stars observed by humans were formed 500 million years after the Big Bang.

Answer 4

Galaxies do not all spin the same way. Some are prograde and some are retrograde from our perspective. While I understand that it is the space that is expanding according to math calculations, it seems that during the initial expansion there was some type of impetus to make the galaxies rotate. Spiral galaxies remind me of giant whirlpools.

Answer 5

Every thing in this universe is Relative!!!! it all depends on where you are or the point which you consider as the reference point...