Which planet in our solar system rotates around its own axis in the opposite direction compared to Earth?

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

💡 Need a hint?

This planet is known as the hottest in our solar system and is named after a Roman goddess.

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The correct answer is B. Venus.

Venus rotates on its own axis in the opposite direction compared to most other planets. On Venus, you would see the sun rise in the west and set in the east. This unusual rotation is called “retrograde rotation”.

Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all rotate from west to east, just like Earth. Jupiter, incidentally, does so at a remarkable speed: a day there lasts less than ten hours.

📚 More background information

Venus is an oddity in several respects. Not only does the planet rotate backwards, it does so remarkably slowly. One rotation takes longer than one full orbit around the sun, which means that a “day” on Venus is, in a sense, longer than a “year” there. Hard to imagine, but true.

Then there is the atmosphere: a thick, dense layer consisting mainly of carbon dioxide, with clouds that reflect a great deal of sunlight. As a result, Venus is the brightest natural object in the night sky after the Moon. Even in antiquity, people knew it as the “morning star” or “evening star”, depending on the season and the time of day.

Why exactly does Venus rotate backwards? Nobody knows for certain. One popular explanation is a massive collision early in the history of the solar system, which reversed the planet’s direction of rotation. Another theory points to the combined effect of gravity and the dense atmosphere acting over billions of years. Both explanations are plausible; neither has been proven.

And for your next pub quiz: Venus is known as Earth’s “sister planet” due to their similar size, but in terms of behaviour it is really the rebellious family member that does everything just a little differently.