A large anisotropy in the sky distribution of 3CRR quasars and other
  radio galaxies
  We report the presence of large anisotropies in the sky distributions of
powerful extended quasars as well as some other sub-classes of radio galaxies
in the 3CRR survey, the most reliable and most intensively studied complete
sample of strong steep-spectrum radio sources. The anisotropies lie about a
plane passing through the equinoxes and the north celestial pole. Out of a
total of 48 quasars in the sample, 33 of them lie in one half of the observed
sky and the remaining 15 in the other half. The probability that in a random
distribution of 3CRR quasars in the sky, statistical fluctuations could give
rise to an asymmetry in observed numbers up to this level is only $\sim 1\%$.
Also only about 1/4th of Fanaroff-Riley 1 (FR1) type of radio galaxies lie in
the first half of the observed sky and the remainder in the second half. If we
include all the observed asymmetries in the sky distributions of quasars and
radio galaxies in the 3CRR sample, the probability of their occurrence by a
chance combination reduces to $\sim 2 \times 10^{-5}$. Two pertinent but
disturbing questions that could be raised here are -- firstly why should there
be such large anisotropies present in the sky distribution of some of the
strongest and most distant discrete sources, implying inhomogeneities in the
universe at very large scales (covering a fraction of the universe)? Secondly
why should such anisotropies lie about a great circle decided purely by the
orientation of earth's rotation axis and/or the axis of its revolution around
the sun? Are these alignments a mere coincidence or do they imply that these
axes have a preferential placement in the larger scheme of things, implying an
apparent breakdown of the Copernican principle or its more generalization,
cosmological principle, upon which the standard cosmological model is based
upon?
