The rotation of Venus is one of the enigmatic phenomena in our solar system. It could not be determined until 1964 (based on radar examinations); its period lasts 243.019 days, by far the longest of all planets. Moreover, Venus rotates retrograde, i.e. against the general rotational direction of the other planets. This odd rotation is nowadays explained partly by tidal influences of the Sun, partly by chaotic effects, that might have led to an overturn of the axis of rotation. As we will see shortly, the peculiar rotation of Venus stands also in geometrical relationship to all planets up to Jupiter.

From the period of rotation one can calculate, that one day on Venus lasts 116.75 days on Earth. In other words, a given point on Venus' surface or a defined horizontal axis faces the Sun every 116.75 Earth days. Of course we can also compute, when this particular defined axis is pointing to the other planets. For the Earth this results in a mean period of 145.93 days, with actual intervals varying considerably around this value. In the following the alignment of the defined axis from Venus to the Earth is called Venus-Earth-View, from Venus to Mercury Venus-Mercury-View etc. If we plot the linklines between Venus and Earth (and those between Venus and the other planets) at these particular points in time continually over a long period, we obtain the following figures:

Figure 3.1 – 3.4 Linklines. Top left: Venus-Mercury at Venus-Mercury-View, 800 times, period approx. 255.7 years. Top right: Venus-Earth at Venus-Earth-View, 700 times, period approx. 279.7 years. Bottom left: Venus-Mars at Venus-Mars-View, 500 times, period 159.8 years. Bottom right: Venus-Jupiter at Venus-Jupiter-View (detail enlargement 10/3), 750 times, period 472.5 years; scale in millions of km. © Keplerstern Verlag

As we can see, the resulting figures are structured by the numbers four, five, ten and fifteen in a very striking numerical order. Please note that it is not self-evident, that regular forms evolve at all. If you execute the corresponding computations with fictitious periods of rotation or with those planets not mentioned here, the result is often a jumble of lines.