Venus is the only planet in our solar system that spins clockwise on its axis, a phenomenon astronomers refer to as retrograde rotation.

A closer look

Venus is the only planet in our solar system that spins clockwise on its axis, a phenomenon astronomers refer to as retrograde rotation. While Earth and all the other planets rotate counter-clockwise, meaning the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, a day on Venus sees the sun rise in the west and set in the east. Furthermore, it spins so excruciatingly slowly that a single Venusian day takes 243 Earth days, which is actually longer than its entire year of 225 Earth days. Scientists suspect a massive collision with a planetoid early in its formation knocked it completely upside down, which perfectly explains why this toxic, scorching hellscape of a planet is permanently going backward and completely failing at basic planetary time management!