Our neighboring planet Venus is an oddball in many ways. For starters, it spins in the opposite direction from most other planets, including Earth, so that on Venus the sun rises in the west.
So how could this have happened? Same as with Venus, Uranus also had counterclockwise rotation until a gigantic impact changed everything. The explanation for this is that in its formation history, Uranus collided with an Earth-sized object which lead to the change of its rotation.
An explanation for the backward, or retrograde, rotation is not certain. A long-held theory is that Venus once rotated as the other planets do, but was struck billions of years ago by a planet-size object. The impact and its aftermath caused the rotation to change directions or flipped the planetary axis.
Venus also orbits the Sun anti-clockwise, but its unusual axis rotation is due to being upside down – it was knocked off its upright position earlier in its history! Astronomers believe that at some point, a colliding celestial body tilted Venus so far off its original position that it is now upside down.
Yes, Venus, the second planet in the solar system, spins on its axis clock-wise from east to west, while all other planets barring Uranus (which rotates on its side since its axis is tilted), spin anti-clockwise from west to east.
The atmosphere of Venus is very hot and thick. You would not survive a visit to the surface of the planet - you couldn't breathe the air, you would be crushed by the enormous weight of the atmosphere, and you would burn up in surface temperatures high enough to melt lead.
Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in our Solar System rotating on average once in just under 10 hours. That is very fast especially considering how large Jupiter is. This means that Jupiter has the shortest days of all the planets in the Solar System.
Yes, Venus spins backwards compared to most of the other planets. It spins or rotates in the opposite direction that Earth rotates. This means that on Venus the Sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
Neptune is our solar system's windiest world. Despite its great distance and low energy input from the Sun, Neptune's winds can be three times stronger than Jupiter's and nine times stronger than Earth's.
Triton is the largest of Neptune's 13 moons. It is unusual because it is the only large moon in our solar system that orbits in the opposite direction of its planet's rotation―a retrograde orbit. Scientists think Triton is a Kuiper Belt Object captured by Neptune's gravity millions of years ago.
The planets all revolve around the sun in the same direction and in virtually the same plane. In addition, they all rotate in the same general direction, with the exceptions of Venus and Uranus.
Uranus holds the record for the coldest temperature ever measured in the Solar System: a very chilly -224℃. The temperature on Neptune is still very cold, of course – usually around -214℃ – but Uranus beats that. The reason why Uranus is so cold is nothing to do with its distance from the Sun.
Why Mars is the hardest planet to land on in our solar system.
But Saturn has at least 60 moons orbiting it that we know about. Asteroids and meteoroids sometimes crash into these moons and break them into pieces. The rings could be made from these broken pieces of moons. The rings may also be made from material left over from when Saturn first formed.
Neptune: The Blue Planet | NASA.
The good news is that the likelihood of such a smash-up is small, around one-in-2500. And even if the planets did careen into one another, it would not happen before another 3.5 billion years.
However, the question remained whether Venus started its life as a more habitable planet before a runaway greenhouse gas effect baked it dry. But a new study from the University of Chicago argues there is little chance the planet was ever habitable.
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun in our Solar System. Due to this, the planet has no atmosphere.
Jupiter has the shortest day in the solar system. One day on Jupiter takes only about 10 hours (the time it takes for Jupiter to rotate or spin around once), and Jupiter makes a complete orbit around the Sun (a year in Jovian time) in about 12 Earth years (4,333 Earth days).
Of the terrestrial (rocky) planets of the inner solar system, neither Mercury nor Venus have any moons at all, Earth has one and Mars has its two small moons.
Answer. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded the status of Pluto to that of a dwarf planet because it did not meet the three criteria the IAU uses to define a full-sized planet. Essentially Pluto meets all the criteria except one—it “has not cleared its neighboring region of other objects.”
Mars is made up primarily of iron, magnesium, sulfur, acids and CO2. Humans can't breathe on Mars, which is probably a good thing because it stinks. Based on the make-up of the planet and atmosphere, researchers have concluded that Mars smells like rotten eggs.
Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are thought capable of hosting life. The planet Kepler-69c is located about 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. This is an illustration of the planet, which is the smallest yet found to orbit in the habitable zone of a sun-like star.
Yes, several landers from the former Soviet Union have landed on Venus. They were only able to send us information for a short time because the extremely high temperature and pressure on the surface of Venus melted and crushed the landers.
It's too dry and too acidic for microbial life to exist above the surface of the hellacious planet, according to a new study. Venus clouds have captivated Earthlings for decades.