The distribution of satellite galaxies relative to isolated host galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ( SDSS ) is investigated .
Host–satellite systems are selected using three different methods , yielding samples of \sim 3300 , \sim 1600 , and \sim 950 satellites .
In the plane of the sky , the distributions of all three samples show highly significant deviations from circular symmetry ( > 99.99 % , > 99.99 % , and 99.79 % confidence levels , respectively ) , and the degree of anisotropy is a strong function of the projected radius , r _ { p } , at which the satellites are found .
For r _ { p } \lesssim 100 kpc , the SDSS satellites are aligned preferentially with the major axes of the hosts .
This is in stark contrast to the Holmberg effect , in which satellites are aligned with the minor axes of host galaxies .
The degree of anisotropy in the distribution of the SDSS satellites decreases with r _ { p } and is consistent with an isotropic distribution at of order the 1- \sigma level for 250 ~ { } { kpc } \lesssim r _ { p } \lesssim 500 kpc .