On 3/30/2015 10:29 AM, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) wrote:
Looking down on the Milky Way from the north galactic pole, our galaxy
rotates clockwise. For a planet in the solar system, the corresponding
rotation would be deemed retrograde. Why was the north galactic pole
defined in this way? Because it is in the northern hemisphere (i.e. has
positive declination)? Were it roughly near the Earth's northern axis,
or the northern axis of the solar system, then this would make sense,
but since it has a declination of less than 30 degrees, I think it would
be more intuitive to define it so that the rotation is prograde.


How about the magnetism? The earth's north-pole is actually
the magnetic south-pole, so perhaps it was to avoid creating
this inconsistency again? :-)

--
Jos