Venus sounds impossible at first: its day is longer than its year.

But the trick is that there are two different ways to talk about a “day.”

A rotation day is how long a planet takes to spin once on its axis. On Venus, that takes about 243 Earth days.

A solar day is how long it takes for the Sun to return to the same place in the sky — sunrise to sunrise. Because Venus spins backward while also moving around the Sun, that works out to about 117 Earth days.

So Venus does not just move slowly. It moves strangely.

Its year is about 225 Earth days, its full spin takes about 243 Earth days, and its sunrise-to-sunrise day is about 117 Earth days. Add in the fact that the Sun would rise in the west, and Venus becomes one of the strangest clocks in the solar system.

Earth gives us a sunrise every morning.

Venus makes you wait almost four months.