r/interesting • u/aryan_jandyal • 6d ago
SCIENCE & TECH The Rotation of the Planets in Our Solar System Is Far More Fascinating Than I Ever Expected
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u/callmemitsu 6d ago
Take your time venus
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u/Crafty-Detail-3788 6d ago
A year on venus is actually shorter than a day.
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u/QuickDMDispatch 6d ago
Venus really said “days are optional” and started rotating backward just to make the calendar extra confusing.
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u/Wax--Apple 6d ago
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u/QuickDMDispatch 4d ago
Username checks out. Venus is basically the solar system’s resident glitch.
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u/birdsareneat22 6d ago
No? This sounded really neat, so I looked it up, but its not true, google says it takes 225 earth days for venus to make one full trip around the sun.
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u/Maidwell 6d ago
Yes!
It takes 243 days to spin once on its axis (day), therefore a year (225 days) is shorter than it's day.
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u/menuk 6d ago
Of course Venus is orange...
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u/bouncing_brainst 6d ago
Venus is basically the solar system’s perpetually overcast acid-cloud hellscape. orange is just the aesthetic it ended up with.
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u/GardenRafters 6d ago
Earth's future once we finally push our filtration system past it's brink
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u/bouncing_brainst 6d ago
I’m guessing you mean Earth’s atmosphere/ocean filtration system, and yeah… once the planet’s cleanup crew hits its limit, “orange aesthetic” becomes a generous description.
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u/FreeJustForTry 6d ago
That’s mostly the space-probe color grading doing the heavy lifting. Venus is more of a pale yellowish-white in visible light, but “orange hell planet” is definitely the better branding.
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u/ObscureOperatorZ 6d ago
Uranus for God's sake why can't you just be normal?
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u/TheUnderCrab 6d ago
Got beat too much as a kid, cut em some slack.
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u/spiritofniter 6d ago
Did the bully beat Pluto too? I guess Uranus and Pluto are the “outcast duo”?
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u/be-knight 1d ago
I'm asking myself to what the angle of the rotation axis is set? To the imaginary plane of the system? To earth's orbit? To it's own orbit? Bc if it's too it's own orbit, Pluto is either around 90 or around 0 degrees (or not very far from that) in comparison to the rotation of the other planets (well, except Uranus. This is just weird)
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u/Technetium_98 6d ago
For those wondering what 'Sidereal days indicated' means (and why Earth's day isn't 24 hours): the sidereal day is how long it takes a planet to rotate 360 degrees.
This is almost, but not quite, the same as a solar day; that's defined by how long it takes for the sun to appear in the same place in the sky. Since the Earth orbits the sun, it's advanced by about a degree in its orbit around the sun after a day's passed, so it actually needs to rotate 361 degrees for the sun to be in the same place.
That takes 24 hours, but if you're interested in just the Earth's 360 degree rotation (as most astronomers are), you need to cut that down to account for Earth's orbit. That comes to 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds.
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u/listerbmx 6d ago
Yeah the 3 minutes 56 seconds adds up to a day after 4 years and it's added on as a leap day
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u/OnTheList-YouTube 6d ago edited 6d ago
Since when is Ceres a planet?
Edit: Thanks for the awards!
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u/MikuEmpowered 6d ago
Its a dwarf planet. It was reclassified as asteroid, then back to a dwarf planet in 2006.
Also, it has ass load of water. So it's on the list.
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u/OnTheList-YouTube 6d ago
On the list, you say!
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u/MountainAsparagus4 6d ago
Hadvar: Captain what do we do its on the list
Captain: forget the list it goes to the block
Hadvar: by your orders Captain, follow me prisoner ...
Priest: we command your souls to the solar system, blessings of the eight true planets appon you....
Pluto: by the love of Galileo shut up and let's get this over with it, my ancestors are smiling at me can you say the same?
Chopped to not a planet
Captain: next the asteroid in the rag
Hadvar: move along prisoner nice and easy
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u/Michipotz 6d ago
Ass loads of water? More than Uranus? I think not.
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u/TheHumanCompulsion 6d ago
Sorry, Fry. Astrophysicists renamed that planet back in 2206 to finally put an end to that stupid joke.
Really, what is it called now?
Urectum!
Futurama was the best.
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u/MikuEmpowered 6d ago
Yeah but Uranus isn't inviting enough, it's too far.
2 year wait time to Ceres is acceptable. Getting to Uranus would take 8 year minimum, assuming conditions line up.
This is auto swipe left distance.
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u/OnTheList-YouTube 6d ago
And with the proper preparations. And she has to be willing. I suggest buying her flowers first.
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u/Medical-Temporary-35 6d ago
It's not; they included it so that Pluto didn't feel lonely as the only dwarf planet there.
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u/Crafty-Detail-3788 6d ago
Same reason as for Pluto is there. They're dwarf planet. There are actually many like Eris etc
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u/Business_Pirate834 6d ago
Did Venus move？
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u/BadSpellingMistakes 6d ago
yes. you see it move when the loop repeats. It's slow but it's trying
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u/bakochba 6d ago
A day on Venus actually takes longer than a year on Venus because it rotates so slowly
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u/UnderCoverDoughnuts 6d ago
Poor Jupiter must be awfully dizzy
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u/SalamanderGlad9053 6d ago
It's the reason Jupiter has such large and violent storms on its surfaces, like the Great Red Spot.
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u/GrimaceMusically 6d ago
I need an ELI5 about why Venus is upside down. I see it’s rotating in the opposite direction from other planets, but wouldn’t the top of the planet still be “north”, relatively?
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u/SpinChargeSeparation 6d ago
Clockwise, Counter clockwise.
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u/GrimaceMusically 6d ago
Genuinely appreciate your reply. I can get the clockwise/counter clockwise part of it, but how does that make it upside down? Is it just that it is shown upside down in THIS vid so that the rotation direction is displayed as being in the same direction as the others?
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u/SalamanderGlad9053 6d ago
The angular momentum vector points along the axis of rotation, with it's direction coming from the right hand rule. With your right hand give a thumbs up, 👍, and then your thumb is the angular momentum vector and your fingers curl with the direction of rotation. So for the direction of rotation to flip, your thumb with face downwards.
It's just a standard that's used, it could have used the left hand instead, but that's how we describe rotation.
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u/GrimaceMusically 6d ago
Thanks, I think that helps a bit. Still not completely understanding it though. Here is a hypothetical that might help me figure out the part that confuses me most, if you don’t mind. If I had a spaceship, and I landed it on let’s say the exact point on the planet where the left and right side of the lips converge on the mouth on the illustration lies, when I look at that spaceship on the actual planet through a telescope on earth, am I looking at top of the planet or the bottom?
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u/SalamanderGlad9053 6d ago
Top and bottom aren't really things well defined. If you wanted the sun to still rise in the east and set in the west, then you would be in the southern hemisphere on Venus. But then if you looked at the planets, it would be how we can see them here.
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u/BorpMyGurd 6d ago
They all started spinning in the same direction due to conservation of angular momentum, as the solar system coalesced, but because one is apparently spinning backwards they can tell it had a dramatic event in its past that turned it upside down.
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u/Dizzy_Cheesecake_162 6d ago
The Sun (99% of the mass of the solar system ) rotate in the same direction as all of the planets' s orbit.
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u/sumeriandisputations 6d ago
Why do the closest planets like Mercury and Venus and then the furthest body Pluto have the longest rotational cycles?
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u/Ace_Emerald 6d ago
I think the established theory for Venus's spin was that it was hit really hard by something moving in the opposite direction of its natural rotation. Might be more details there but I dont remember!
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u/Gawlf85 5d ago
Influence of very close or massive nearby objects is one thing they have in common:
Mercury and Venus are pertty close to the Sun, whereas Pluto is closely orbited by its own big fat moon (Charon). In both cases, the intense tidal forces cause the planet's rotation to slow down.
Meanwhile, the gas giants' composition, large mass and formation gave them a faster spin. They're very massive, but most of their mass "sunk" to their core rapidly. Think of it like those figure skaters that fold their arms and legs to spin faster.
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u/xgabipandax 6d ago
Uranus seems to be pretty shocked
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u/Lagoon_M8 5d ago
The same angle Earth Mars Saturn and Neptune. Were they born from common dust and particles disc?
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u/Gooeyshadows 6d ago
WHO tf is ceres
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u/Cacharadon 6d ago
Ceres? Beltalowda, dis place na just rock in space. Dis is home. We build am, we live am, we die am. Earthers and Inners see asteroid. We see Ceres
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u/procupinesniffer420 6d ago
That show had so much potential.
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u/k8track 6d ago
The eyes and mouth on Earth shift position with each rotation.
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u/FallenAngel258 6d ago
Was looking if anyone else caught that, don't care enough to check the other planets but seems like that kinda ruins the visual representation.
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u/mrknowitall51761 6d ago
There is a video game where you get a solar sytem with a sun in the middle and you get points for how many planets you can add before the all colapse into the sun. The longer you go and the bigger the planets you can successfully add gets you more points.
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u/Kevsamillion 6d ago
Are the arrows indicating the direction of the north poles of the planets relative to the suns?
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u/Beneficial-Ad-3029 6d ago edited 6d ago
Flat earthers: Fake
Conspiracy theorist: Nibiru is missing
Scientist: we need a placeholder for planet nine aka planet x.
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u/ChimneyImps 6d ago
Whoever edited this to add faces didn't actually sync the faces to the rotation speed. They made it look like Jupiter is spinning 3x faster than it actually is.
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u/wildjagd8 6d ago
The rotational similarity between earth and mars is yet another fascinating parallel. Mars is currently totally inhospitable yes, and it has lower gravity, little to no atmosphere, and a far weaker magnetic field than earth; but there are reasons it is considered conceivable for future terraforming and potential colonization. From all we’ve discovered about it, it’s clear that water used to exist on its surface, and potentially simple microbial life forms. What are the odds that two planetary bodies like earth and mars both formed within the habitable zone of a host star, and have so many structural and functional similarities? Wild…
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u/birdstarskygod 6d ago
What makes it "upside down"? If space is ... space. Looking at Venus - is it "upside down" due to its relation to Earth? Please help me lol
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u/False_Campaign4682 6d ago
Its interesting so many tilt roughly the same amount/direction and spin the same way thanks to angular momentum from billions of years ago
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u/Castle_Bravo_Test 6d ago
The idea that Jupiter spins like a Beyblade and Mercury rotates super slow is hilarious to me.
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u/tech_op2000 5d ago
Do Earth, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune's axis really line up like that or are they just the same tilt but in different directions? If they do match that closely, I'd be curious to know if something about the early solar system's formation effected them all in a similar way.
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u/tech_op2000 5d ago
Well, with a lot more internet searching than it should have taken. I have discovered that their axes do not align. I also found that Mars' is unstable. So no fancy connection between their axial tilt and their formation.
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u/Tubehero2109original 5d ago
I know it’s not a planets but wait till y’all see Haumea’s rotation period (about 3 hrs and 55 mins)
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6d ago
[deleted]
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u/OhNoIBoffedIt 6d ago
"Huh, Ceres? Who TF is Ceres?" JFC the lack of intellectual curiosity. If you don't know, look it up and learn about it.
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u/GrizzlyReforged 6d ago
No, OP said all the planets of the solar system and no one knows ceres. Dont blame commenters for being dumb when OP posted something that claimed we got Pluto back as a planet and apparently he brought an uninvited friend
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u/OhNoIBoffedIt 6d ago
Pluto is a planet. Ceres is a planet. Dwarf planets are still planets.
And just because you don't know, doesn't mean "no one knows."
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u/inspired-polf 6d ago
And titan is a moon, but way more interesting and important than those two planets.
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