How long does a day last on each of the planets in the solar system?
A planet where one day lasts longer than a year,
another where days last several decades, and even a planet where days pass too quickly.
How long does a day last on each planet? Although we are used to the fact that on earth,
the days last 24 hours, in the rest of the solar system planets, the days are not like on earth,
and in fact, they are very different. "Introduction"
Before leaving on our journey, we must remember something fundamental
What is a day? When you think of a day,
the first thing that comes to mind is the day-night cycle. This is what we call solar day.
On Earth, a solar day lasts about 24 hours. However, the Earth's orbit is elliptical;
it does not form a perfect circle. Thus, some Earth days are a few minutes longer than the
typical 24 hours, and others are somewhat shorter. It all depends on the year's date, but on average,
a day on Earth lasts 23 hours and 56 minutes. That is, they are not the exact 24 hours you thought.
That said, let's get started.
MERCURY In Mercury,
a day lasts 1408 hours or what is the same, 58 days with 15 hours and 30 terrestrial minutes.
The days are long on Mercury, aren't they? But why does Mercury spin so slowly?
The reason is that Mercury is the closest planet to the sun;
because of that, the intense gravitational pull of the sun slows down Mercury's rotational motion.
This causes Mercury to have an effect very similar to tidal coupling.
Tidal coupling, also called synchronous rotation, is the physical phenomenon in which the face of
one astronomical object permanently points at another, such as the visible face of the Moon,
which always points at Earth. In the case of Mercury, there is
no tidal coupling, but almost, if it were not because it has a massive core full of iron,
it is likely that this particular phenomenon would also have occurred in Mercury.
Something curious is that in Mercury, a day lasts a little less than a year since the
time it takes Mercury to give a complete turn to the sun is 87 days with 23 hours and 23 minutes.
That is to say that in Mercury, there can only be one day a year since when
the second day is completed, in Mercury, it will already be another different year.
VENUS On Venus,
a day lasts a staggering 5,832 hours, namely 243 days with 18 exact hours.
Venus is the planet with the longest day of all. In fact, not only is it the planet
with the longest day, but it is the only planet where a day lasts longer than a year.
On Venus, a day lasts 243 days, but a year lasts 225 days.
As you just heard, Venus takes longer to make a turn on itself than to circle the sun.
Another mystery is that Venus it rotates in the opposite direction to all the other planets..
While all planets rotate from east to west, Venus does so from west to east. Astronomers think this
may be because, in the past, Venus suffered the impact of a vast body the size of the moon,
dramatically changing its sense of rotation. This, combined with the strong winds that occur
in its atmosphere, caused the rotation of Venus to change direction, and because of that, it is now
the only planet that rotates clockwise and also the only one where a day lasts more than a year.
In addition, the orbital and rotation periods of Venus are synchronized
so that it always presents the same face to the Earth when both bodies are at a shorter distance.
This could be a simple coincidence, but there is speculation about a possible origin of this
synchronization as a result of tidal effects affecting the rotation of Venus when both bodies
are close enough. MARS
On Mars a day lasts 24 hours with 39 minutes and 35 seconds.
It is the planet with the day most similar to that of the earth.
Although a day on Mars lasts almost the same as on Earth,
the same does not happen with the year, since Mars takes 686 days to give a complete turn to the sun.
In other words, on Mars a year lasts 686 days, which is much longer than a year on Earth lasts,
this is because Mars is much farther away, therefore, its orbit around the
sun is also larger and the time it takes to travel its entire orbit is greater.
An interesting fact is that since the length of the day on Earth and Mars are similar,
for greater operational comfort, those responsible for the American robotic
exploration missions to Mars have decided to give the Martian day the name of sun instead of day,
so as not to confuse it with the day of the earth. Thus, when you spend a day on Mars it is said
that sun 1 has passed, day 2 is equal to sun 2, and so on.
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JUPITER On Jupiter,
a day lasts 9 hours with 55 minutes and 30 seconds, is the planet with the shortest day.
The reason why the days on Jupiter are so short is due to its composition. Unlike the four planets
mentioned above, Jupiter is a gas giant. That is, it is not solid but a massive ball of gas.
Because of that, its gases can move much fast, giving the planet its characteristic
form of clouds, tornadoes, and hurricanes that form everywhere.
Jupiter's rotational speed is so great that the Coriolis effect makes its own,
causing massive cyclones that can last centuries. The Coriolis effect is the same thing that causes
hurricanes here on Earth. Due to Coriolis acceleration, air masses deviate to the
right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere,
so the direction of rotation of hurricanes is opposite in each hemisphere of the Earth.
On Jupiter, the same thing happens, but on a larger scale
since hundreds of thousands of tornadoes and hurricanes are generated simultaneously
with winds that exceed 1,450 km / h. The most famous example of these is
the great red spot, Jupiter's most big anticyclonic vortex, which is thought
to have been around for more than 300 years, and there is no sign that it will stop anytime soon.
This massive cyclone is three times larger than planet earth,
is part of the cloud atmosphere that surrounds Jupiter, and gives a complete turn to the planet
in less than 10 hours. SATURN
On Saturn, a day lasts 10 hours with 33 minutes and 38 seconds; from here,
you will notice that all gaseous planets have relatively short days compared to rocky ones.
Like Jupiter, Saturn has a high-speed rotation, which causes gusts of winds of up to 1650 km/h.
In the 1980s, Voyager probes detected a hexagonal pattern in Saturn's north polar region
that the Hubble Space Telescope also observed during the 1990s.
The most recent images obtained by the Cassini probe have shown the polar vortex in great detail.
Saturn is the only known planet with a polar vortex of these characteristics,
although polar vortices are common in the atmospheres of Earth or Venus.
In the case of Saturn's hexagon, the sides are about 13,800 kilometers long – slightly
more than the diameter of the Earth – and the structure rotates with a period identical to
that of the planetary rotation, being a standing wave that does not change its length or structure,
as do the rest of the clouds in the atmosphere. URANUS
On Uranus, a day lasts 17 hours with 14 minutes. However, as in all giant planets,
the upper part of the atmosphere experiences strong winds in the direction of rotation.
In fact, at some latitudes of Uranus, such as about two-thirds of the distance between the
equator and the south pole, visible clouds in the atmosphere move much faster, making
an entire rotation in as little as 14 hours. In addition to the enormous rotational speeds
of the winds that make up the atmosphere, Uranus presents a unique anomaly in the entire solar
system since its axis of rotation is sideways concerning the plane of the solar system,
with an inclination of the axis of 97.77°. This produces changes in the seasons utterly
different from the other major planets. When the solstices of Uranus approach, one pole
looks continuously in the direction of the Sun while the other is in the opposite direction.
Only a narrow band around the equator experiences a rapid day and night cycle,
but with the Sun very low above the horizon as in the Earth's polar regions.
Each pole of Uranus receives about 42 years of uninterrupted sunlight,
followed by 42 years of darkness. That is, even though in Uranus a day lasts
17 hours, the Sun sets every 42 years, something analogous to what happens in the polar regions of
planet Earth, such as in Alaska, where the Sun can hide for months, while in Uranus the Sun is
hidden for four decades. NEPTUNE
On Neptune, a day lasts 16 hours with 6 minutes and 14 seconds. Like the other gaseous planets,
it has a very high rotational speed, which contrasts with its translation speed.
This planet lies so far away that a year lasts 60,190 days, which equals 164 years
with 288 earth days and 13 earth hours. Because of this, on July 12, 2011,
after almost 165 Earth years, Neptune reached the end of its first complete orbit around the Sun
since its discovery in 1846, in what constitutes a year in terms of its translation.
The next time Neptune makes another complete turn of the Sun will be in 2176.
In addition, Neptune has the most intense winds in the entire Solar System,
with gusts reaching 2,000 km / h. As you can see, the days are
entirely different on each planet. Would you like to know how long a
day lasts on each of the dwarf planets? Let us know with your valuable comment!