@infobeautiful Wow, I never checked this. Interesting:

* Venus very slow - is it frozen on the dark side?
* Only Uranus rotates "backwards", I wonder why
* Jupiter's surface must go very fast relative to... the surrounding void?

@infobeautiful I like how uranus is just doing its own thing

@OndrejZizka @infobeautiful thanks to a super thick atmosphere and the wonders of convection Venus is hot enough to melt lead even at "night"!

@OndrejZizka @infobeautiful I think Venus is moving to the left of the screen too actually, just very slowly. Uranus is lies on its side compared to its orbit, so it should probably be moving perpendicular on the screen!

@bazkie @infobeautiful to be pedantic, Uranus should be vertical at the side, not horizontal.

Such a weird and wonderful planet.

@infobeautiful Dr O'Donoghue and his visualizations are one of the few things I miss about Twitter.

@infobeautiful This is very nice

@tehstu @infobeautiful I use them regularly in my classes (from YouTube).

@infobeautiful Don’t know why but I find this very pleasing. Thanks!

@infobeautiful oi! Where's Pluto?

@infobeautiful If anyone is wondering why Earths day in this is a few minutes shorter than you might expect, it’s because it’s showing sidereal days, not solar days. So, the time it takes for the planet to spin around to facing the same absolute direction, not just that little bit further* needed to face the sun again because the planet has also orbited a bit.

(* or less, for Uranus and less obviously Venus)

@OndrejZizka @infobeautiful Venus also has retrograde rotation.
Anyway, only things with little or no atmosphere are frozen on the night side, like Mercury or our Moon.