Galaxy spins in the Virgo cluster

The sign of the inclination of the galactic plane and the sense of the internal rotation is determined for the cases of 20 galaxies in the Virgo cluster, thereby completely defining the internal angular momentum vector, or spin, for each of these galaxies. No evidence is found of either a non-zero vector sum in the 20 spins, or of a correlation between spin and orbital motion through the cluster. While the spin vectors are not entirely random, the character of this nonrandomness is not clear. These results are found to be compatible with the identification of tidal torques as the spin-up mechanism for galaxies, and with most models of cluster formation.