Rotation of planets in the solar system, highlighting Venus’s retrograde and Uranus’s tilted spin (Photo: Pinterest)
The solar system began to live with rotation from the colossal moments of its beginning. The reasons for this movement among them and the causes leading some to deviate from the proverbial cosmic movement are threats to planetary spin.
Planetary spin is a simple consequence of the formation of the solar system. Millions of years ago, a gargantuan cloud of gas and dust began collapsing under gravity which forming a flattened disk of spinning gas called the protoplanetary disk.
The cloud continued collapsing it began spinning faster and conserving angular momentum the same way a figure skater pulls in her arms. This spin was transferred to the small lumps of material that were aggregating to form the planets. They started spinning with the same general direction inherited from the initial motion of the disk.
ALSO READ: Do the Pacific & Atlantic Oceans Really Mix: The Science Behind
Venus is an oddball spinning in the opposite direction from most planets. Having a clockwise or retrograde rotation the sun rises in the west there and opposite to what happens on Earth.
Ancient impacts or gravitational overtures intermittently with tidal forces from the dense atmosphere are hypothesized to have slowly reversed Venus's rotation over billions of years. Its slow backward spin which is longer than a day on Venus which makes it eccentricity in the cosmos.
Uranus's spin is equally with their tilt angles past 97 degrees, so they are practically horizontal to their orbital plane. The extreme tilt was caused by some gargantuan impact with a great bulk early in its history.
ALSO READ: When the Sky Dances: Science Behind the Northern Lights
It is viewed from above the solar system plane and Uranus appears to spin clockwise. This unusual spin results in peculiar seasons and daylight cycles at its poles making it different from its planetary brothers.
The meaning of day and night would be reversed if the Earth suddenly began to rotate in the opposite or retrograde direction renaming east as west and the sun rising in the west will setting in the east.
Beyond this single shift ocean currents and wind patterns would also radically go through change as a result of the Earth’s retrograde rotation, wreaking havoc on global climates and ecosystems. If there was to be some change in the tide pattern it might also cause havoc for marine life and weather systems.
The planets have the same direction when rotating the exceptions of Venus, Uranus and some moons indicate to how the complex and chaotic cosmic history could be. These abnormality spins have a history of violent pasts and gravitational interferences that account for their strange spins. They also give some insight into the dynamic processes that continue to mold our solar system.
ALSO READ: Asteroid, Comet, Meteor: What Are They and How Do They Differ
