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The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci. A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time. The square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to the cube of the length of the semi-major axis of its orbit.
Earth's rotation or Earth's spin is the rotation of planet Earth around its own axis, as well as changes in the orientation of the rotation axis in space. Earth rotates eastward, in prograde motion. As viewed from the northern polar star Polaris, Earth turns counterclockwise.
In astronomy, the rotation period or spin period [1] of a celestial object (e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the sidereal rotation period (or sidereal day ), i.e., the time that the object takes to complete a full rotation around its axis relative to the background stars ( inertial space ).
The depth of this gap depends on the temperature and viscosity of the gas and on the planet mass. In the simple scenario in which no gas crosses the gap, the migration of the planet follows the viscous evolution of the disk's gas. In the inner disk, the planet spirals inward on the viscous timescale, following the accretion of gas onto the star.
In Mercury's case, the planet completes three rotations for every two revolutions around the Sun, a 3:2 spin–orbit resonance. In the special case where an orbit is nearly circular and the body's rotation axis is not significantly tilted, such as the Moon, tidal locking results in the same hemisphere of the revolving object constantly facing ...
If the mergers happen after the gas disk dissipates terrestrial planets can form, if in a transition disk a super-Earth with a gas envelope containing a few percent of its mass may form. If the mergers happen too early runaway gas accretion may occur leading to the formation of a gas giant.
All eight planets in the Solar System orbit the Sun in the direction of the Sun's rotation, which is counterclockwise when viewed from above the Sun's north pole. Six of the planets also rotate about their axis in this same direction. The exceptions – the planets with retrograde rotation – are Venus and Uranus.
Atmospheric super-rotation is a phenomenon where a planet's atmosphere rotates faster than the planet itself. This behavior is observed in the atmospheres of Venus , Titan , Jupiter , and Saturn. Venus exhibits the most extreme super-rotation, with its atmosphere circling the planet in four Earth days, much faster than the planet's own rotation ...