Venus Spins Backwards Slower Than It Orbits

Venus does something genuinely strange. It rotates on its axis so slowly that a single day on Venus, measured from sunrise to sunrise, takes 243 Earth days. A year on Venus, by contrast, takes only 225 Earth days. This means Venus completes its orbit around the sun faster than it completes one full rotation on its own axis. Even stranger, Venus rotates backwards compared to most planets. While Earth and most others spin counterclockwise when viewed from above the North Pole, Venus spins clockwise. Scientists still debate why. The leading theory involves massive asteroid collisions early in Venus's history that gradually reversed its rotation and slowed it to a crawl. The result is that if you stood on Venus's surface near the equator, the sun would appear to move across the sky from west to east, opposite to what we see on Earth. The sun would move slowly, staying visible for roughly 60 Earth days before setting. Then night would last another 60 days before sunrise returned. This extreme rotation affects Venus's atmosphere too. The planet's thick cloud layers zip around the planet in just four Earth days, creating winds that move far faster than the surface itself rotates. The atmosphere essentially moves independent of the solid ground beneath it.