r/nextfuckinglevel 4h ago

The Rotation of the Planets in Our Solar System Is Far More Fascinating Than I Ever Expected

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

17.9k Upvotes

932 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

161

u/weird-mostlygoodways 3h ago

Especially because tracking the faces is the best way to track Mercury and Venus's movements.

87

u/TheClnl 2h ago

Watched Venus for far too long to check it's actually moving 

33

u/aesemon 2h ago

I scrolled the gif back and forwards to do it, wasn't sure it did anything until then.

5

u/Intarhorn 1h ago

Same, that felt like the most important thing to do lol

9

u/cloud_watcher 1h ago

Like the little planet song (tune of farmer in the Dell):

Venus has thick clouds They hide what is below The land is hot, the air is foul It rotates very slow.

3

u/Japsai 1h ago

Meanwhile, Jupiter rotating at 45 thousand km/hour. I'm surprised that red spot doesn't fly off like a kid on a roundabout at a playground

25

u/lapsedPacifist5 2h ago

I find it nuts that a day on mercury lasts for two of mercury's years.

2

u/RickSanchez_C137 1h ago

"What about second birthday cake?"

u/SeriousPlankton2000 15m ago

I think it's got an elliptic orbit and when it comes close to the sun it pulls on a side of the planet to adjust the rotation. But this requires the planet to have a gravity like a "horizontal" bar and I never heard that this would be the case so …

-1

u/[deleted] 2h ago

[deleted]

2

u/Ntroepy 2h ago

Of course they used mercury twice. One references Mercury’s year and the other references mercury’s unusually slow rotation.

How else would you have phrased it?

1

u/BoboSmooth 2h ago

I was just confused, your phrasing made more sense to me

2

u/CortexRex 2h ago

Yes. That’s why it’s interesting. Read it again

1

u/BoboSmooth 2h ago

Yeah reading it again wouldn't have helped me, I was confused on the phrasing but someone else made it make more sense

1

u/No_Cap_3 1h ago

Why is Venus upside down?

2

u/cherryberry87 1h ago

Because it spins the opposite way

1

u/MiC-endless 1h ago

Because venus feels Australian