Bizzare Facts

Planetary mechanics on **Venus** are completely bizarre and backward compared to what we experience on Earth. For starters, Venus rotates on its axis incredibly slowly—so slowly that it would take **243 Earth days** to complete one single rotation (what astronomers call a sidereal day). To make matters stranger, Venus rotates in the opposite direction to most other planets in the solar system, a phenomenon known as **retrograde rotation**.

However, despite this sluggish spin, Venus orbits the Sun relatively quickly. It completes a full revolution around the Sun in just **225 Earth days**. This creates one of the most bizarre realities in our solar system: a Venusian **day** (one rotation on its axis) is actually longer than a Venusian **year** (one orbit around the Sun).

If you were standing on the surface of Venus (and somehow survived the crushing atmospheric pressure and 900°F temperatures), you could technically celebrate your birthday every single day before the sun had time to set. And when the sun does move, it would rise in the west and set in the east—completely opposite to Earth—assuming you could even see it through the thick, sulfuric acid clouds that perpetually blanket the planet.