On Venus, which lasts longer — a day or a year?

Venus rotates on its axis extraordinarily slowly, taking about 243 Earth days to complete a single spin, while it only takes about 225 Earth days to orbit the Sun once. That means one full day-night cycle on Venus is actually longer than one full Venusian year, an odd reversal compared to Earth, where a year contains hundreds of days.

Saying the day and year are equal misses just how unusual Venus's rotation really is, the two figures are close numerically but not identical, and the day still edges out the year, making Venus one of the strangest bodies in the solar system when it comes to timekeeping.

Venus also rotates in the opposite direction to most planets, a trait called retrograde rotation, meaning that if you could somehow watch a sunrise from its surface, the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east.