SOCR Case-Study: Galaxy Spins and Angular Momentum

Overview: A fundamental astrophysics question is what drives angular momentum, which is observed in atomic level spins, as well as galactic rations. All observed galaxies and their constituent  
parts, some 10^68 atoms, spin. Do they rotate in the same direction, left vs. right hand spins? Is the distribution of spins uniform? What is the driving force behind those spins and what is  
the role of the law of conservation of angular momentum?

Dataset: Galaxy spins for n=25,561 spiral galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)

URL:  
https://umich.instructure.com/courses/38100/files/folder/Case_Studies/22_SDSS_GalaxySpins_Case_Study

Reference: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2011.04.008 (2011)

Format: CSV format
GALAXY_ID,RA,DEC,HAND,UZS,GZS,RZS,IZS,ZZS,ELLIPS,PHIS,RSS

Note: Most of the SDSS DR6 data are in the northern Galactic cap centered about $\alpha \sim  
192^o,\ \delta\sim 27^o$, in equatorial coordinates. In right ascension (RA), the coverage is  
roughly $120^o \< \alpha < 240^o$ and in declination (DEC) $-5^o < \delta < 63^o$.

Data Elements: 
   * GALAXY_ID - the unique SDSS ID of the galaxy
   * RA and DEC - right ascension and declination 
   * DEC - declination measure in Degrees 
   * HAND - R (right hand) or L (left hand) galactic spin
   * UZS,GZS,RZS,IZS,ZZS - the magnitudes in 5 filter bands 
     (U and R are the apparent magnitudes for the ultraviolet (354 nm) and red (628 nm) bands)
   * ELLIPS and PHIS - the ellipticity and the angle of the galactic ellipse
   * RSS - galaxy redshift

n=25561 (galaxies), k=12 (features)

First two rows in the data include:

587722952230240617,236.39732,-0.49346,R,17.430401,16.168200,15.562500,15.158400,14.912300    
0.825220,154.011993,0.054749
587722952230633836,237.30429,-0.48217,L,19.208300,17.964800,17.352900,16.988300,16.744400    
0.961358,100.156998,0.097667
...