• A. Mars
  • B. Venus
  • C. Jupiter
  • D. Saturn

💡 Need a hint?

This planet is known as the hottest in our solar system and is sometimes called the “morning and evening star.”

✅ View the answer

The correct answer is B. Venus rotates retrograde, meaning in the opposite direction to most other planets. On Venus, you would see the sun rise in the west and set in the east.

📚 More background information

Venus is a remarkable oddity in our solar system. Not only does the planet spin the “wrong” way, it does so at a ridiculously slow pace: one full rotation on its own axis takes longer than one orbit around the sun. And then there is that atmosphere — a thick blanket that traps heat so effectively that Venus is even hotter than Mercury, despite Mercury being much closer to the sun. How did things end up this way? Astronomers suspect a massive collision early in the history of the solar system, but it remains somewhat speculative. For a pub quiz, this works perfectly as a trick question: most people guess one of the large gas giants, while the answer is simply that familiar bright evening star you can see hanging in the sky on a clear night.