Planets of the Solar System: Tilts and Spins [apod.nasa.gov]

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 with much insight gained from modern computer modeling and the recent discovery and analysis of hundreds of exoplanets: planets orbiting other stars.

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