All the planets in the solar system rotate anticlockwise, except one. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise. Venus (radius 3,760.4 miles) is similar to Earth (radius 3,963.19 miles) in size and structure but spins very slowly; a day on Venus is 243 Earth days long.
Earth is the densest (5.515 g/cm3) planet in the solar system and the only one not named after a god. Earth orbits the sun at an average speed of 66,629 mph (107 229 km/h). One year on earth is 365.24 days long. One day is 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4,06 seconds long. The extra day in a leap year was introduced to compensate for the discrepancy in the Georgian calendar.
It’s easy to remember the order of the eight planets with this line: My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos. The capital letters stand for the order of the planets, starting closest to the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
Earth is not exactly round; it is slightly pear-shaped. The North Pole radius is 1.73 inch (44mm) longer than the South Pole radius.
Plates carrying the continents migrate over the earth’s surface a few inches per year, about the same speed that a fingernail grows. Which also is about the speed at which the moon is moving away from earth; the moon is moving away at 1-and-a-half inches (3,8cm) per year. The reason probably being that earth is rotating ever slower – 1.4 milliseconds per century slower, some sources calculate 3 milliseconds per century – meaning less gravitational pull on the moon.
The final Curious © phrase:
“Venus, a beautiful, good-natured lady, was the goddess of love; Juno, a terrible shrew, the goddess of marriage; and they were always mortal enemies”
(Jonathan Swift)
