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Old July 11th 04, 07:56 PM
Oriel36
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Default do galaxies wobble?

(Ted Sung) wrote in message ...
When talking about the rotation of spiral galaxies, it almost always
seems to mean rotating in a plane. I was wondering if it was possible
that the galaxy also precesses much like a spinning top. Perhaps this
would occur when the galaxy was young. Has this ever been observed?
Could it?

Thanks,

Ted


Sure,at least in principle.

Local rotations such as the Earth's axial rotation generates a stellar
circumpolar 'polaris effect',the rotation of the stars around the
Milky Way axis generate a similar but larger scale ' North Galactic
pole'.

If the plane of stellar rotation about the Milky Way axis wobbles then
so will the orientation to the illusionary NGP.