On Venus, the Sun Rises in the West

Almost everything about sunrise on Venus is strange. NASA points out that, because of the planet’s extremely slow rotation, sunrise to sunset on Venus would take 117 Earth days. The direction is backward as well. In NASA’s words, the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east, because Venus spins backward compared to Earth. Nobody would be watching it in comfort. NASA describes Venus as the hottest planet in our solar system, with a thick atmosphere that traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect and surface temperatures of about 872 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt lead. The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, with dense clouds of sulfuric acid that would hide the Sun anyway. Despite all of this, NASA notes that Venus is sometimes called Earth’s twin.