Do Galaxies Move? Rotation Around Something?

[mdmaaz]

Moons revolve around planets. Planets revolve around stars. The entire solar system moves in a circular path within the galaxies. I was wondering whether galaxies also move in a circular path around something. Do galaxies rotate?

 

[Janus]

Galaxies collect gravitationally into groups and clusters. The individual galaxies in each orbit around the common center of gravity of the group or cluster.

 

[Nik_2213]

IIRC, there's also movement of galaxy clusters...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor

 

[Philosophaie]

Galaxies speed and direction can be measured by the Doppler Effect. If the spectrum is shifted to the Red they are moving away and to the Blue they are moving towards us.

 

[phinds]

Galaxies speed and direction can be measured by the Doppler Effect. If the spectrum is shifted to thhe Red they are moving away and to the Blue they are moving towards us.

True but irrelevant to the OPs question, which as nothing to do with how galaxies are moving relative to US but rather how they are moving relative to themselves and to any objects by which they are gravitationally affected, and with the rest of the galaxy.

mdmazz, your statement "The entire solar system moves in a circular path within the galaxies" is incorrect. The solar system moves in a circular (more or less) path IN THE MILKY WAY. Its motion relative to the REST of the galaxies in the universe, which is to say, its motion relative to the whole universe (the "observable universe" that is), is not circular.

Check out: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/PatriciaKong.shtml

 

[Phobos]

As noted above, galaxies move with respect to each other due to gravitational interactions (orbiting each other within galaxy clusters).

Galaxy clusters also "move" apart from each other due to the expansion of space.