A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus.
Venus takes about 243 Earth days to rotate once on its axis, but only about 225 Earth days to travel around the Sun. It also spins backwards compared with most planets, so the Sun rises in the west.
Why is this true?
Astronomers think a huge impact early in its history, or tidal effects from its thick atmosphere, slowed and flipped its rotation. Venus is the slowest-spinning planet in the solar system.
More facts in this category
More about space
Space facts are mostly a lesson in scale. Days longer than years, storms wider than Earth, light that left its star before the pyramids existed — the numbers stop being intuitive very quickly. Every entry here comes from established astronomy and includes a short explanation of what causes the effect, so the fact holds up when someone asks the obvious follow-up question at the dinner table.