A Day on Venus Is Longer Than Its Year — And It Gets Weirder

On our neighbor planet, the sun rises in the west. Slowly. Very slowly.

Venus takes about 225 Earth days to orbit the sun, but roughly 243 Earth days to spin once on its axis. Read that again: its day is longer than its year.

The planet also rotates backward compared to most of its siblings, meaning that on Venus, the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.

Blame a runaway greenhouse effect for the rest of its résumé: surface temperatures near 465 degrees Celsius, hot enough to melt lead, under crushing clouds of sulfuric acid.

Venus is nearly Earth's twin in size — a haunting reminder of how differently a planet's story can go.