Ever Have Days That Feel Like a Year?
Good thing you don't live on Venus.
Welcome to Fun Fact Friyay! This newsletter is all about keeping things brief and sending you off into the world smarter, wiser, and happier.
On Venus, one day is longer than a year.
As you (hopefully) know, an Earth day is 24 hours. Technically, it’s 23.943 hours, but we round up for the sake of simplicity. I know I’m certainly not trying to do math with a trio of decimals, and I don’t think you are, either.
However, Venus rotates on its axis only once every 243 Earth days. It’s slower than a snail dipped in molasses trying to run a marathon.
(Please don’t actually dip any snails in molasses.)
Yet Venus orbits the sun once every 224.65 Earth days.
A little quick math indicates that 243 is greater than 224.65. This is the math I can get down with. Here it is as an equation, so it looks even fancier.
243 > 224.65 (= 🤯)
What this means is that one Earth day on Venus lasts longer than an entire Venus year.
Venus is also one of two planets (Uranus is the other) that rotates clockwise. Most of the other objects in the solar system rotate counter-clockwise.
Alas, we won’t ever truly know what this phenomenon is like. Venus’s air pressure is more than 90 times what it is on Earth, and every time spacecraft get sent up to explore the planet, they melt within an hour.
Shout out to subscriber Craig L.! Thanks for the support on Earth, Venus, Mars, and the entire galaxy.