{# FB Pixel disabled — kept for reference #}

Is a day on Venus longer than a year on Venus?

Yes. Venus's sidereal day (one full axial rotation) takes approximately 243 Earth days, while its orbital year takes only about 224.7 Earth days. This makes a Venusian day longer than a Venusian year — a fact confirmed by NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, CNES, and ESO.

Venus rotates extraordinarily slowly on its axis — so slowly that one full spin (its sidereal day) takes about 243 Earth days. Its trip around the Sun, however, takes only about 224.7 Earth days. This means Venus completes an entire orbit before it finishes a single rotation, making its year shorter than its day. NASA, CNES, the Canadian Space Agency, and ESO all explicitly state this relationship, with the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy quantifying a Venus year as roughly 0.924 of a Venus sidereal day.

There is an important nuance: the solar day on Venus — the time from one sunrise to the next — is only about 116.75 Earth days, which is shorter than its year. This is because Venus rotates in the opposite direction to most planets (retrograde rotation), which partially cancels out its orbital motion and compresses the apparent solar cycle. Under this definition, the claim would be reversed.

However, the dominant framing used by major space agencies defines a planetary "day" as one full axial rotation (the sidereal day). Under that standard — the one most commonly cited in scientific outreach — a day on Venus is unambiguously longer than its year.

Read the full analysis
Verify any claim