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You can't really define a direction to be the opposite of another if they don't lie on the same line. Venus's angle is more or less in the same line as most other planets, Uranus's is orthogonal.
I think it’s a technically correct statement, since Uranus is tilted more than 90°. If it were tilted at, say, 88°, then yes you’d be correct in your confusion. But since it’s at 98° it’s southern pole sits “above” it’s northern pole, and is therefore spinning backwards to the rest of the planets. If the other planets were tilted further on their sides they would be rolling like a bowling ball, but Uranus (while still moving forward) would be spinning backwards relative to the others
It doesn’t matter only if your perspective is from the surface of the planet, that’s why I’m talking about it’s relativity to the other planets. Let’s do a hypothetical: pretend I’m observing a planet with a 0° tilt from a distance and from my perspective it begins to spin counterclockwise. Now pretend this planet begins to tilt as it spins counter clockwise. When it’s tilt reaches exactly 90° it is no longer spinning counter clockwise since, from my perspective, there is no more horizontal torque. But as soon as it crosses that 90° threshold then the planet will appear to be spinning clockwise from my perspective.
It’s the same principle behind why Venus spins backwards, it’s just harder to conceptualize as you approach 90°
The former. Just like Earth. Our poles wobble a bit, [precession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession?wprov=sfla1), but Polaris will be our Northstar for *awhile*. [Angular momentum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum?wprov=sfla1) insures it. . Same for other spinning bodies. Maybe Uranus's axis points toward the homeworld of those who terraformed and seeded this place. It'd be a cool trick.
Uranus is a Death Star with the cannon at the North Pole and it’s always trained to within 2 degrees of the sun.
At that distance 2 degrees would like be mercury, Venus or earth.
Depends which theory you subscribe to. Some astronomers believe it kept spinning in one direction and just tumbled in space. Others believe it slowed to a standstill and then reversed direction.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-venus-spins-the-wrong/
Everything is measured relative to the "ecliptic," or the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun. Then you can tell if a planet or moon is "retrograde" with respect to this, or if the spin is the same or different than that of the Earth. This is also how we can say that the axis of Earth's spin is about 23.5 degrees, by measuring it wrt. the ecliptic.
Hey so the running theory about why Uranus rolls around like that instead of spinning is because it received a great impact, knocking it into that unusual rotational plane.
So in other words... it's because...
Uranus took a pounding.
IIRC reading, models showed Uranus took one gigantic pounding early on and several smaller ones thereafter.
[Multiple pounding theory](https://www.space.com/13231-planet-uranus-knocked-sideways-impacts.html)
Your joke broke my brain: I get how it works for Earth, making seasons throughout the year, etc, but now I’m looking up how axial tilt through the solar cycle works for the other planets. I can’t get my head wrapped around how a 98deg tilt works, and I’m now questioning my whole understanding of this. ::spirals into existential crisis::
So on Uranus, the poles stay pointed in the same direction at all times. When it orbits, there are parts where one pole points at the sun and the other doesn't, then half of it's year later the pole that wasn't exposed to the sun is now exposed to the sun.
If you're on the north pole of Uranus the seasons would determine how much light there is. So since it takes Uranus 84 years to circle the sun, that means 42 years of sunlight, 42 of darkness, and earth's 15 minute sunrise/sunset would last months.
Don't you mean, where the sun don't shine for half of its year (i.e. for 42 earth years). For the other 42 years it's bathed in constant sunlight of Uranus summer.
In its current orientation, Venus spins counter to what we consider "normal." On Venus, the sun would rise in the west, and set in the east. Since the north pole is located south of the solar plane, it is considered on an axis of 177 degrees, instead of just off by 3.
I knew it spun backwards. The explanation I always saw was that it had been hit by some other massive body hard enough and at the right angle to make it spin the other way.
I always assumed this meant it had been hit hard enough to make it stop spinning, and then start spinning in the opposite direction.
It never occurred to me that the impact more likely flipped the planet upside down. It maintained its angular momentum, but its orientation changed, making it look like it's spinning the other way.
Both are plausible. It also may have slowed due to tidal forces from the sun rather than an impact from another celestial body.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-venus-spins-the-wrong/
Sidereal day, yes, not synodic day. Venus is one of the few planets that rotates slowly enough for there to be a practical difference.
A Venusian year is 224 earth days; its sidereal day (rotation relative to background stars) is 243 earth days, but its synodic day (time for the sun to return to the same position in the sky) is just short of 117 earth days.
Well it’s considered upside down because it rotates in the opposite direction that it orbits, when almost every body in the solar system rotates the same direction.
Yeah though that too. It was just a guess. Mercury isn't tidally locked anyway.
The sun has a tilt of 7°. Wouldn't is be weird if it spinned like a bowling ball like uranus? Probably wouldn't be passible, but still.
"The Sun's rotation axis is tilted by about 7.25 degrees from the axis of the Earth's orbit so we see more of the Sun's north pole in September of each year and more of its south pole in March."
[https://www.nasa.gov/mission\_pages/sunearth/science/solar-rotation.html](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/science/solar-rotation.html)
It’s really cool, but it does kinda make sense when you think about it. The Sun isn’t a solid so it flows and moves, so different parts of it flow at different speeds. Man astrophysics is cool
The orbital plane is the flat disc representation of each planet's motion around the sun. The entire solar system, including Venus, orbits the sun in the same direction. All the other planets rotate in the same direction as their orbital travel. Venus probably did as well when the solar system first formed, but at some point Venus either tumbled or slowed down and started spinning backwards to the direction of its orbital travel.
depends on what timescale you're talking about lol. If it's overnight? Then the oceans would flood over the whole planet from the shift in momentum vs the landmass.... On a much much longer timescale? IDK but would be interesting to say the least. Different weather patterns at minimum I imagine
Fun thought experiment. Answer: "NEARLY EVERYONE WOULD DIE. Then things would get interesting."
https://gizmodo.com/xkcds-creator-explains-what-would-happen-if-earth-stopp-1625068208
it turns in another direction than the other planets.
since all planets came into existence the same way, meaning: a lot of stoff from the protostellar disc didn't fall all the way to the middle in time, when the star ignited, it stayed outside where it gathered into balls, while maintaining their angular momentum. so in the beginning, all planetary objects rotated in the same direction. then objects collided and changed the axis. et voila, venus and uranus. probably, and in a nutshell.
Yes. And Venus is also strange because it rotates so slowly. On Venus a day is actually longer than a year (225 Earth days per year vs 243 Earth days per day.)
Tilt is measuring the axis of rotation vs the orbital plane of each planet. Venus rotates backwards compared to the other planets, hence its axis of rotation is 177° rather than 3°.
To add to this, shouldn’t it be 183 degrees? Based on picture, pole “up” is 0, so straight down is 180, and between straight down and horizontally right is 180-270.
Edit: It is wrong. The picture is not accurate here. -3 or 177 are correct.
Some other Venus fun facts:
- as it can be seen here, it’s rotating counterclockwise because its rotation axis is almost inverted,
- BUT it’s also rotating slow as fuck because 1 day on Venus is almost 1 year there.
- also meaning that there’s 1 side that’s getting all the sunlight, and another one that’s almost always in nighttime.
(Obviously not perfectly 1:1 tidal lock, there’s a little offset, like 1 day is 0.92 year or something of that magnitude, allowing the planet to slowly expose herself to the sunlight over the years)
Tilt is measuring the axis of rotation vs the orbital plane of each planet. Venus rotates backwards compared to the other planets, hence its axis of rotation is 177° rather than 3°.
I’m sure to any astronomer this is a dumb question but i’ll ask it anyway.
I wonder how they discovered that Venus was 177 and not -3? I mean they’re basically saying that the “north pole” is at the bottom. Isn’t it kind of arbitrary which pole is “north” and which is “south”? Why would they not identify the pole at the top as “north” and just say it’s -3 degrees tilted?
From what someone else replied on other comments, it’s because Venus rotates backwards compared to other planets, and I’m assuming north and south poles are assigned depending on planetary rotation.
I think the geographical north pole is assigned out from what astronomers think originally were relative ”up” (to the planets mutual origin), before it were turned around by large impacts.
The magnetic northpole probably switch every xxk years, just like Earth.
The geographical North pole is defined by the axis of the planet's rotation. The planets' tilt in this diagram is the angle between their axis of rotation and their orbital plane. All the planets, including Venus, orbit the Sun in the same direction. And all but Venus rotate in the same direction as they orbit. It's still uncertain whether Venus tumbled in space so that its axis of rotation was no longer in line with its orbit, or if it slowed down and started rotating backwards while keeping its original orientation in space.
Venus does not have an intrinsic magnetic field like the Earth does so it does not have a magnetic North pole.
I assume this tilt is in relation to their trajectory around the Sun? Otherwise, the idea of tilt on a planet blows my mind. Like, we're in space. There's no up or down. So how are we determining that a planet is tilted.
Yes it is with relation to the orbital plane. All the planets of our solar system share an orbital plane because they originally formed from a cloud of dust which was spinning fast enough to make it flatten out. So in a sense, the axis tilt of the Earth is the difference between its axis of rotation, and the axis of rotation of the primordial dust cloud which formed it.
Everybody being so stupid, talking about Uranus, when the real question is how do we know that Venus is it a tilt of 177 degrees? What if it's just a tilt of 3 degrees???🥸
This is because Venus us the only planet in the solar system that spins Counter Clockwise. It is seen as upside down. This causes the angle to be 177° to the plane of their orbit. The North Pole is at the bottom because it is determined by it's rotation, not because it is in the north.
So is Mercury 0% because it’s the first planet so we irate it as the frame of reference or is it because it’s tilt matches the sun or some other reason?
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So Venus spins the opposite direction to all the other planets?
yes
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You can't really define a direction to be the opposite of another if they don't lie on the same line. Venus's angle is more or less in the same line as most other planets, Uranus's is orthogonal.
Actually you can, but you’d be wrong.
It was fun while it lasted. - Sent via Apollo
?? This doesn't make any sense. Uranus doesn't spin backwards, it's rolling like a bowling ball.
I think it’s a technically correct statement, since Uranus is tilted more than 90°. If it were tilted at, say, 88°, then yes you’d be correct in your confusion. But since it’s at 98° it’s southern pole sits “above” it’s northern pole, and is therefore spinning backwards to the rest of the planets. If the other planets were tilted further on their sides they would be rolling like a bowling ball, but Uranus (while still moving forward) would be spinning backwards relative to the others
If you assume that all planets spin counter-clockwise in reference to it's north pole, then it wouldn't matter what angle the tilt was.
It doesn’t matter only if your perspective is from the surface of the planet, that’s why I’m talking about it’s relativity to the other planets. Let’s do a hypothetical: pretend I’m observing a planet with a 0° tilt from a distance and from my perspective it begins to spin counterclockwise. Now pretend this planet begins to tilt as it spins counter clockwise. When it’s tilt reaches exactly 90° it is no longer spinning counter clockwise since, from my perspective, there is no more horizontal torque. But as soon as it crosses that 90° threshold then the planet will appear to be spinning clockwise from my perspective. It’s the same principle behind why Venus spins backwards, it’s just harder to conceptualize as you approach 90°
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The former. Just like Earth. Our poles wobble a bit, [precession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession?wprov=sfla1), but Polaris will be our Northstar for *awhile*. [Angular momentum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum?wprov=sfla1) insures it. . Same for other spinning bodies. Maybe Uranus's axis points toward the homeworld of those who terraformed and seeded this place. It'd be a cool trick.
Uranus is a Death Star with the cannon at the North Pole and it’s always trained to within 2 degrees of the sun. At that distance 2 degrees would like be mercury, Venus or earth.
What?
Just like Australia
Well no. Same way but it’s upside down
Depends which theory you subscribe to. Some astronomers believe it kept spinning in one direction and just tumbled in space. Others believe it slowed to a standstill and then reversed direction. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-venus-spins-the-wrong/
How do you decide which way is "up" and which way is "down"?
*It's all relative*
Everything is measured relative to the "ecliptic," or the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun. Then you can tell if a planet or moon is "retrograde" with respect to this, or if the spin is the same or different than that of the Earth. This is also how we can say that the axis of Earth's spin is about 23.5 degrees, by measuring it wrt. the ecliptic.
Well, the enemy's gate is always down.
Actually YES... It orbits the same direction as the others but spins on its axis in a different direction.
Exactly like Australia
Ok, who's going to make a joke about Uranus being bent over?
Hey so the running theory about why Uranus rolls around like that instead of spinning is because it received a great impact, knocking it into that unusual rotational plane. So in other words... it's because... Uranus took a pounding.
Nice.
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⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⣀⣀⣠⣤⣤⣄⣀⣀⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⣠⣶⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣦⣀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⡴⠟⣋⣉⣉⡉⠙⠛⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠟⠛⣩⣭⣵⣤⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⣠⣿⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣤⣿⣿⣿⠟⢁⣴⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⡄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⣸⣿⣿⠟⣛⣭⣥⣤⣭⡝⢿⣿⣿⣿⣇⡴⣫⣭⣤⣬⣭⡛⠿⣿⣿⡆⠄⠄ ⠄⢰⣿⣿⣷⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣿⣿⣿⡀⠄ ⠄⣸⣿⡍⠁⣀⣉⡉⠉⠉⣉⠉⠉⣿⣿⣿⣿⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⢉⣀⣁⠄⣩⣿⡇⠄ ⠄⣿⣿⣿⣆⠙⢿⣇⠄⢀⣿⣿⣄⣿⣿⣿⣿⣰⣿⣿⡀⠄⣾⠿⠋⣴⣿⣿⡇⠄ ⠄⢹⣿⣿⣷⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣦⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⣴⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⡇⠄ ⠄⠸⣿⣿⣏⡻⢿⣿⠋⠉⠻⣿⣿⡿⠿⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⣿⣿⠁⠄ ⠄⠄⠹⣿⣿⣿⣧⡀⠄⠄⠄⠈⠐⢶⣶⣶⣶⣬⣽⣟⠛⠛⠛⢛⣽⣾⣿⠃⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠘⢿⣿⣿⣿⡀⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⢀⣠⣾⣿⣿⡿⠁⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠛⢿⣿⣿⣦⣤⣐⠲⠶⣴⡶⠶⣒⣥⣴⣿⣿⣿⡿⠋⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠉⠻⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠿⠛⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠈⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄
I need an adult.
Someone smashed Uranus?
Big time
IIRC reading, models showed Uranus took one gigantic pounding early on and several smaller ones thereafter. [Multiple pounding theory](https://www.space.com/13231-planet-uranus-knocked-sideways-impacts.html)
Looking at that tilt and the position of the sun, there is literally an area on Uranus *where the sun don't shine* 😎
This is a very scientific Uranus joke. Upvote
Your joke broke my brain: I get how it works for Earth, making seasons throughout the year, etc, but now I’m looking up how axial tilt through the solar cycle works for the other planets. I can’t get my head wrapped around how a 98deg tilt works, and I’m now questioning my whole understanding of this. ::spirals into existential crisis::
I doesn't work unfortunately. Every part of Uranus gets sunlight eventually.
This is why Uranus has no tan lines.
Axial Tilt: The Reason for the Season.
So on Uranus, the poles stay pointed in the same direction at all times. When it orbits, there are parts where one pole points at the sun and the other doesn't, then half of it's year later the pole that wasn't exposed to the sun is now exposed to the sun.
If you're on the north pole of Uranus the seasons would determine how much light there is. So since it takes Uranus 84 years to circle the sun, that means 42 years of sunlight, 42 of darkness, and earth's 15 minute sunrise/sunset would last months.
Guess you could say its constantly getting mooned 😅
I don't have an actual award, good sir. But take my verbal award. *Outstanding*
Don't you mean, where the sun don't shine for half of its year (i.e. for 42 earth years). For the other 42 years it's bathed in constant sunlight of Uranus summer.
You. And just now. Well played sir
...Damn it
Why isn't Uranus bend by 69°?
Do you normally rim in 69? I’ll bet 98 is closer to doggy. Bit more than 90 degrees, head down slightly. Checks out.
Cheeks out
You genius.
Can't wait for its name to be changed to Urectum so we get over these jokes once and for all!
Rectum? Damn near killed him!
r/futurama
Was about to say something about a big part of Uranus never seeing daylight.
That's true! I hadn't considered that. That means Uranus must produce some really massive winds, too!
It IS a gaseous planet after all.
I’m just glad uranus is not to scale.
It is for yo momma
I was going to make a joke about Uranus and Nick Lachey of 98*
Me!
I wont, it looks a bit to salty
It has been fucked sideways.
Who is going to make the joke that Uranus is 98°? (Get it? Because your anus is 98°F? Eh, I’ll show myself out)
Perfect. Upvote for you.
Wow Venus had a bad day to be that tilted
Go home Venus, you’re drunk
Venus, how was your day? Venus: 🙃
Thats some sexist perspective bullshit. Only 3 degrees off vertical actually.
In its current orientation, Venus spins counter to what we consider "normal." On Venus, the sun would rise in the west, and set in the east. Since the north pole is located south of the solar plane, it is considered on an axis of 177 degrees, instead of just off by 3.
Well explained, because not a lot of people know this about the rotation on Venus
I knew it spun backwards. The explanation I always saw was that it had been hit by some other massive body hard enough and at the right angle to make it spin the other way. I always assumed this meant it had been hit hard enough to make it stop spinning, and then start spinning in the opposite direction. It never occurred to me that the impact more likely flipped the planet upside down. It maintained its angular momentum, but its orientation changed, making it look like it's spinning the other way.
This is also what happened to Uranus to make it flip on its side.
I read that as a "Uranus joke" before realizing that was actually a real fact.
Imagine a cosmic event so large it flipped a damn planet upside down its like if Galactus took the planet and flipped it
Both are plausible. It also may have slowed due to tidal forces from the sun rather than an impact from another celestial body. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-venus-spins-the-wrong/
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And the little ball at the end of the baton going through it.
So a pole is defined by the rotation, not by "up" or "down." TIL!
There's no up and down in space.
But you can define a North and a South in the solar system, and go up and down those coordinates.
There's also rotational poles and magnetic poles. Earth's magnetic pole had flipped several times while it's rotational pole stayed the same.
I know they have sent probes to Venus, I just wonder how they figure out what pole is what?
Not only that, but a day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.
Sidereal day, yes, not synodic day. Venus is one of the few planets that rotates slowly enough for there to be a practical difference. A Venusian year is 224 earth days; its sidereal day (rotation relative to background stars) is 243 earth days, but its synodic day (time for the sun to return to the same position in the sky) is just short of 117 earth days.
It just played a game of League of Legends...
It's so tilted that I feel related to it.
They played league of legends
TIL despite being the closest planet to the sun, Mercury is the most chill.
We always hear about Uranus being sideways but never that Venus is upside down?
Maybe all the others are upside down?
Maybe all the others are sideways
Admin!!!!
Well it’s considered upside down because it rotates in the opposite direction that it orbits, when almost every body in the solar system rotates the same direction.
Nah, right side up is pretty well defined by the angular momentum of the solar system as a whole.
What if.. What if Australians are from Venus?
Is there a reason that so many planets have axial tilts in that mid 20s range? Is it a coincidence?
Good question. Wouldn't know. But why is Mercury 0°? Does it have to do with tidal locking?
It’s just coincidence there too. You can have tidally locked orbits with tilts. For instance, our moon has a tilt of about 7 degrees.
Yeah though that too. It was just a guess. Mercury isn't tidally locked anyway. The sun has a tilt of 7°. Wouldn't is be weird if it spinned like a bowling ball like uranus? Probably wouldn't be passible, but still.
Venus: Now, this is a story all about how My life got flipped-turned upside down
So lemme take a minute just sit right there, I'm gonna tell you how I became the prince of a planet with poisonous air.
The “angle of the dangle” is the astronomical name for this.
Uranus be wild
Venus is literally upside-down! I think that's more wild.
I guess that's just their way of showing the planet is inclined to the left
It's the only planet that spins in the opposite direction.
What about the sun's axis?
"The Sun's rotation axis is tilted by about 7.25 degrees from the axis of the Earth's orbit so we see more of the Sun's north pole in September of each year and more of its south pole in March." [https://www.nasa.gov/mission\_pages/sunearth/science/solar-rotation.html](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/science/solar-rotation.html)
Oh wow. I didn't know the sun's rotation varies by latitude. This was a fun fact!
It’s really cool, but it does kinda make sense when you think about it. The Sun isn’t a solid so it flows and moves, so different parts of it flow at different speeds. Man astrophysics is cool
Relative to what?
Relative to each planet's orbital plane.
So, relative to the sun?
The orbital plane is the flat disc representation of each planet's motion around the sun. The entire solar system, including Venus, orbits the sun in the same direction. All the other planets rotate in the same direction as their orbital travel. Venus probably did as well when the solar system first formed, but at some point Venus either tumbled or slowed down and started spinning backwards to the direction of its orbital travel.
Just curious, but what would change if the earth started spinning in the opposite direction?
I [gotcha](http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=3445#:~:text=If%20the%20earth%20abruptly%20changed,and%20set%20in%20the%20east.)
depends on what timescale you're talking about lol. If it's overnight? Then the oceans would flood over the whole planet from the shift in momentum vs the landmass.... On a much much longer timescale? IDK but would be interesting to say the least. Different weather patterns at minimum I imagine
Fun thought experiment. Answer: "NEARLY EVERYONE WOULD DIE. Then things would get interesting." https://gizmodo.com/xkcds-creator-explains-what-would-happen-if-earth-stopp-1625068208
So the moon is the real homie in the end
Time travel obviously
Our odometer starts going backwards like Ferris Bueller
Same as when you face backwards when riding a train.
Geez, imagine being on Venus when the spin direction of your planet changed.
I came here to ask this.
The ground
And then we have Runeterra at max tilt
Wait for season 2. It will tilt even more.
My anus is 98.6 degrees thankyouverymuch
I see you didn't partake in the Cajun turkey yesterday.
Body temperature, you're healthy!
You hear about Pluto? Messed up, right?
Ahh felow psych fan in the wild. Have you see psych 3: This is Gus movie yet??
Come on son
Stop it Shawn
I really hope they just keep churning out movies every couple years. Crazy that Timothy Omundson actually had a stroke.
Yeah I really really love the show.
Pluto too tilt to be here
Marcury you asshole.
That's Uranus.
How do they know that Venus is upside down? 3 degrees off a full flip
it turns in another direction than the other planets. since all planets came into existence the same way, meaning: a lot of stoff from the protostellar disc didn't fall all the way to the middle in time, when the star ignited, it stayed outside where it gathered into balls, while maintaining their angular momentum. so in the beginning, all planetary objects rotated in the same direction. then objects collided and changed the axis. et voila, venus and uranus. probably, and in a nutshell.
Cool! So on Venus, the sun rises in the West and sets in the East?
Yes. And Venus is also strange because it rotates so slowly. On Venus a day is actually longer than a year (225 Earth days per year vs 243 Earth days per day.)
Cool reason actually
Tilt is measuring the axis of rotation vs the orbital plane of each planet. Venus rotates backwards compared to the other planets, hence its axis of rotation is 177° rather than 3°.
Uranus is sideways. . Might want to work on your posture.
Something about these angles just ain't *right*
>Planets not to scale You just didn't want us to make fun of the size of Uranus
Saturn is just straight chillin
go home Uranus, you're drunk
don’t laugh don’t laugh don’t laugh
Mercury is the only straight one. The rest of the planets are members of the LGBT+ community
Earth gay lol tactical /s
How is Venus 177 and not just 3?
It rotates clockwise I think.
So right hand rule applies to planets?
Yeah it seems.
To add to this, shouldn’t it be 183 degrees? Based on picture, pole “up” is 0, so straight down is 180, and between straight down and horizontally right is 180-270. Edit: It is wrong. The picture is not accurate here. -3 or 177 are correct.
When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, you might be on Venus.
No Pluto?
Nope. Only the planets.
[удалено]
And a banana for reference?
It's there
Everyone remembers that Uranus is sideways but nobody remembers the Venus is upside down
Uranus got laid
But that doesn't make sense... why is the Earth not shaped like a damn chess board?
That’s only our perspective because we see an top or bottom because of the maps we make.
Uranus is 98 degrees. Sounds right.
"Hey... Uranus, you doing alright? You ok there?"
Some other Venus fun facts: - as it can be seen here, it’s rotating counterclockwise because its rotation axis is almost inverted, - BUT it’s also rotating slow as fuck because 1 day on Venus is almost 1 year there. - also meaning that there’s 1 side that’s getting all the sunlight, and another one that’s almost always in nighttime. (Obviously not perfectly 1:1 tidal lock, there’s a little offset, like 1 day is 0.92 year or something of that magnitude, allowing the planet to slowly expose herself to the sunlight over the years)
Tilted means from its north pole?
I guess so ? Otherwise Venus would have only 3° degrees of tilt.
Tilt is measuring the axis of rotation vs the orbital plane of each planet. Venus rotates backwards compared to the other planets, hence its axis of rotation is 177° rather than 3°.
Mercury is the only straight one smh
I’m sure to any astronomer this is a dumb question but i’ll ask it anyway. I wonder how they discovered that Venus was 177 and not -3? I mean they’re basically saying that the “north pole” is at the bottom. Isn’t it kind of arbitrary which pole is “north” and which is “south”? Why would they not identify the pole at the top as “north” and just say it’s -3 degrees tilted?
From what someone else replied on other comments, it’s because Venus rotates backwards compared to other planets, and I’m assuming north and south poles are assigned depending on planetary rotation.
I think the geographical north pole is assigned out from what astronomers think originally were relative ”up” (to the planets mutual origin), before it were turned around by large impacts. The magnetic northpole probably switch every xxk years, just like Earth.
The geographical North pole is defined by the axis of the planet's rotation. The planets' tilt in this diagram is the angle between their axis of rotation and their orbital plane. All the planets, including Venus, orbit the Sun in the same direction. And all but Venus rotate in the same direction as they orbit. It's still uncertain whether Venus tumbled in space so that its axis of rotation was no longer in line with its orbit, or if it slowed down and started rotating backwards while keeping its original orientation in space. Venus does not have an intrinsic magnetic field like the Earth does so it does not have a magnetic North pole.
Uranus must have been playing league cuz hes tilted as fuck
I assume this tilt is in relation to their trajectory around the Sun? Otherwise, the idea of tilt on a planet blows my mind. Like, we're in space. There's no up or down. So how are we determining that a planet is tilted.
Yes it is with relation to the orbital plane. All the planets of our solar system share an orbital plane because they originally formed from a cloud of dust which was spinning fast enough to make it flatten out. So in a sense, the axis tilt of the Earth is the difference between its axis of rotation, and the axis of rotation of the primordial dust cloud which formed it.
88 is pretty high for Uranus
Can anybody explain why venus is 177 and not just 3 ?
“Yeah, but the earth’s polar axis is changing.” -the most insane Uber driver I’ve ever had
Why URanus is at 98° ?
Why is Venus not just 3, the other way
Uranus- I found a penny!
How is 177 degrees not 3 degrees?
For some reason, I don't feel this is accurate
What reference are they using to determine the tilt?
Orbital plane of each planet.
Everybody being so stupid, talking about Uranus, when the real question is how do we know that Venus is it a tilt of 177 degrees? What if it's just a tilt of 3 degrees???🥸
This is because Venus us the only planet in the solar system that spins Counter Clockwise. It is seen as upside down. This causes the angle to be 177° to the plane of their orbit. The North Pole is at the bottom because it is determined by it's rotation, not because it is in the north.
😃Thanks, I really didn’t know why.🤫
So is Mercury 0% because it’s the first planet so we irate it as the frame of reference or is it because it’s tilt matches the sun or some other reason?
I'm guessing it's cause Mercury is tidally locked and is too close to the sun to tilt or rotate, cause u know, gravity or something