                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2022 September 11

                Planets of the Solar System: Tilts and Spins
           Video Credit: NASA, Animation: James O'Donoghue (JAXA)

   Explanation: 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, most certainly underwent dramatic
   spin-altering collisions during the early days of the Solar System. The
   reasons 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.

                    Tomorrow's picture: stars and sprites
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

