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The Spin of the Planets


Time per rotation, direction, tilt of axis

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How does your favorite planet spin? Does it spin rapidly around a nearly vertical axis, or horizontally, or backwards?

The featured video animates NASA images of all eight planets in our Solar System to show them spinning side-by-side for an easy comparison.

In the time-lapse video, a day on Earth -- one Earth rotation -- takes just a few seconds. Jupiter rotates the fastest, while Venus spins not only the slowest (can you see it?), but backwards.

The inner rocky planets across the top underwent dramatic spin-altering collisions during the early days of the Solar System. Why planets spin and tilt as they do remains a topic of research.

Source: NASA Picture of the Day

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