Flipping the Sun Around
Classical Mechanics
Level
2
If you could stand upon any planet's surface, on which of the following planet would you see the sun rising in the west (opposite the Earth's direction)?
Venus
Mars
Saturn
Neptune
Mercury
Jupiter
Uranus
Pluto
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1 solution
In the solar system, Venus is the only planet that has an orbit opposite from the other planets. Therefore, if we could stand upon Venus' surface, we would see the sun rising in the west unlike upon other planets, where we would see the sun rising in the east.
Interestingly, Venus' revolving time around its own axis takes around 243 (Earth's) days while its orbit around the sun takes only 225 days. That means one day on Venus is longer than one year on the planet itself!