Dust lanes in galaxies (particularly lenticular + elliptical galaxies like Centaurus A) often show significant asymmetries, warps, and complex morphologies (Graham 1979; van Dokkum 2015). Difficult to explain in standard steady-state accretion models where gas + dust should settle into symmetric flat planes aligned with potential principal axes. Observed asymmetries suggest unrelaxed mergers or sustained non-equilibrium dynamics.
The standard model expects gas + dust in galaxies to settle into symmetric equilibrium configurations unless perturbed by recent mergers. Persistent asymmetries in apparently isolated galaxies demand frequent merger histories or sustained non-equilibrium dynamics, neither of which is parsimonious without external evidence.
SCT replaces the hot-dense-center with a superluminal collision and the thermalized debris field. From this single change, dust lane asymmetries come from cascade-dust + gas inherited from prior cycles plus cascade-stream J inheritance signatures. Pre-existing matter (P25, P28) supplies the dust + gas populations whose structural patterns inherit from cascade-stream geometry rather than from late-time accretion-equilibrium settling.
Angular-momentum inheritance (P31, P32) gives the dust + gas populations cascade-stream-J orientations that may differ from the host stellar-disk J. The dust lane asymmetries reflect this multi-component J inheritance: dust + gas inherit J from one cascade-stream-event component while stars inherit from another, naturally producing the observed misalignments + warps without requiring recent mergers.
Centaurus A's prominent dust lane perpendicular to its elliptical-galaxy major axis is the archetypal example: cascade-stream J inheritance gave the dust + gas a J component oriented differently from the stellar spheroid (cross-link recid 134 Centaurus A streams). Gravitational superposition (P50, P51, P52) provides cosmic-web context that holds the asymmetric dust patterns. The same M3 framework that produces galaxy spin alignments (recid 83), bulge-disk decoupling (recid 114), thick disks + warps (recid 123), and the broader cascade-J inheritance phenomenology accounts for dust lane asymmetries as inherited cascade-stream signatures rather than merger-induced disequilibrium.
If precision JWST + ALMA + Roman dust-lane surveys find asymmetries fully consistent with recent-merger or sustained-perturbation predictions at the 5% level (no inherited cascade-stream-J orientation signature), the M3 explanation is refuted. The signature SCT prediction is dust-lane orientations correlating with local cascade-stream J vectors rather than with apparent recent-merger histories.