Compared with most planets in the Solar System, Venus rotates in a retrograde direction.
Retrograde rotation means Venus spins on its axis opposite to the direction in which it travels around the Sun. Most planets rotate prograde, generally counterclockwise when viewed from above the Sun’s north pole. Venus is therefore one of the Solar System’s notable rotational exceptions, along with Uranus, whose extreme axial tilt produces unusual seasonal geometry.
Venus rotates exceptionally slowly: one sidereal rotation takes about 243 Earth days. Its year lasts about 225 Earth days, so a Venusian sidereal day is longer than its orbital year. The Sun would appear to rise in the west and set in the east for an observer on the surface, although the thick atmosphere and hostile conditions make direct observation impossible for humans.
The precise origin of Venus’s retrograde spin remains an active scientific question. Giant impacts, long-term tidal effects from the Sun, and interactions involving Venus’s atmosphere may all have contributed. Retrograde here describes axial rotation, not a spacecraft’s orbit or the apparent backward motion of a planet in the sky.