Venus - the only Planet that .............

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Dear Sreenadh ji,

 

Bhaskar ji's question was " Venus is the only planet which rotates clockwise.

Why? " .

 

 

One school of thought is that when formed, Venus had a 'normal'

counter-clockwise rotation, but over billions of years the earth may have

exerted tidal forces on Venus's dense atmosphere, causing it to slow down and

eventually start rotating in clockwise direction.

 

Another school of thought has the same view about the initial direction of

rotation but opines that Venus was impacted some 700 million years back by some

giant celestial body which caused its direction to change.

 

Yet another school has a totally different view. It says the basic premise that

Venus moves clockwise is itself wrong, it says Venus actually moves

counter-clockwise like the other planets. Though it appears to be rotating

clockwise but actually it doesn't. Venus's axial tilt is 177.4 degrees which

means that while standing from the north pole of the Sun, all planets appear to

be rotating clockwise except for Venus, which is actually still rotating

clockwise but the planet itself is (almost) upside down so it gives that

appearance.

 

Best regards,

 

Vinay

 

 

On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:58:26 +0530, sreesog <sreesog wrote:

 

> Dear Dev ji,

> Venus 'revolves' (orbits) like any other planet, but it 'rotates' around its

own axis in the opposite direction. Anyway some people will replace these words

and use 'rotate' for 'revolution' and 'revolution' for 'rotation' - or vise

versa. I am not much interested in terminologies - but only the point Bhaskar ji

is trying to state. So let me quote from wikipedia -

> //If viewed from above the Sun's north pole, all of the planets are orbiting

in a counter-clockwise direction; but while most planets also rotate

counter-clockwise, Venus rotates clockwise in " retrograde " rotation. //

> Here even wikipedia is confusing us by introducing the word 'retrograde'. It

would be better to state it as follows.

> //If viewed from above the Sun's north pole, all of the planets are orbiting

in a counter-clockwise direction (including Venus); but while most planets also

rotate counter-clockwise, (unlike other planets) Venus rotates in clockwise

direction.//

>

> Hope this clarifies.

> Love and regards,

> Sreenadh

>

> , " axeplex " <axeplex

wrote:

>>

>> Dear Bhaskarji,

>>

>> Is this question right? Does not Ve move like Su, Mo.... any direct motion

planet.

>>

>> regds

>> Dev

>>

>>

>> , " Bhaskar " <bhaskar_jyotish@>

wrote:

>> >

>> >

>> > Venus is the only Planet that rotates Clockwise .

>> >

>> > Why ?

>> >

>> > regards/Bhaskar.

>> >

>> > P.S. Dont ask me . i dont know the answer.

>> >

>>

>

>

>

 

 

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