Planet Spinning direction and Rotation direction about sun

Most are spinning the same (as earth) but there are exceptions like Venus.

What is different with Venus.

Venus, Uranus & Pluto spins in the opposite direction than earth.

Google for "Retrograde rotation" or "Venus rotation" to verify for yourselves.

I am interested in knowing if planet spinning direction is also opposite in case of Retrograde Rotation.

When viewed from top of the plane of rotation around Sun, if Earth and other normal palnets are rotating in clockwise direction, is spinning around their own axis is also clockwise? In case Retrograde Rotating planets is spinning also opposite?

Have a play with this ; http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/38090/Universe-Sandbox

You can see what's going on a bit better.

Hi nandan

The orbits are in the same direction but their axis seem to have flipped by more than 90 degrees. Why I don't know as it was a bit before my time'

have a look at http://cseligman.com/text/sky/rotationvsday.htm

_{It sounds a bit like water going down a plug hole in a bath}.You'll need an expert to explain then anomalies like Uranus (on it's side)/Venus(retrograde), though I don't think this will be the place. There is no 100% certain answer that I know of.

As far as I can understand, it the solar system was formed by a spinning cloud of particles. As the particles bunch up into planets, the direction of spin in conserved. The biggest bunching up is, of course, the Sun (all gas, so I can't really call it a planet).

The Milky Way has nice little trailing arms to show how it's spinning, though I don't know who took the pictures you see in books.

Yes, the planets spin is related to the spin of the sun/solar system. The fact that we have anomalies means that you can't say there is a rule that will apply to all solar systems out in the big wide yonder. Even a star with a single misbehaving planet would break a definitive rule.

I would urge you to await some more informed comment before accepting all this, I'm just shooting a guess really. CR4 has many experts who can answer stuff like this with numbers and solid fact.

one theory is that they got hit by a large object that changed their spin

There is a definite relation between the SPIN direction and ORBIT direction. Take a school globe model and give it a Counter-Clockwise spin (Viewed from top of the North pole), you'll find that it has a tendency to move away from you, i.e. the direction of the earth's orbit around the sun. Try the same with the clockwise spin and the globe wants to come towards you.This is due to "Inertia". As a "Free" body in space, its degrees of freedom are unlimited. Since, it is not existing in total isolation, the earth is subjected to the mutual gravitational effects of its neighbors and itself.Also, the inflence of the solar radiation and the earth's own magnetic field and variations affect both the spin rate and orbital velocity(varying through the year depending on its position on the trajectory it has wrt the sun). A further consideration is the way the earth would have formed some 4.5 billion years ago, by the agglomeration of matter of varying sizes and shapes dictated by the largest pieces and their individual spins resulting in a net spin of the total mass and continuing through aeons.

We also have to take into account the spin rate of the core material having a different value from that of the surface regions. In some instances, these can be quite anomalous. Please keep in mind that these mechanisms have a very large time frame (Millions of years) and cannot be expected to behave like rigidly coupled objects having "Instant" reactions.

To work out the exact "Formula" of the relationship between SPIN and ORBIT, we would have to be better equipped both in terms of knowledge of mechanics and computational power.

Keep up the thinking process and you'll get there!!

Regards