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No. The rate of decrease is not constant.

But Venus and Mercury have lost their rotation, not having a massive moon to keep them rotating, against solar tides slowing them.

Mars has kept its rotation by its distance from the sun. Its tiny moons help only a little.




Venus still rotates. It rotates on it's axis very slowly, every 243 earth days, and goes around the sun every 224 earth days. Its direction of rotation is opposite ours, so when combined with the orbit you get a sunrise every 117 earth days.

Mercury is weird. It is tidally locked, but not like our moon. Mercury rotates around its axis three times for every two orbits. (Which I just learned while writing this comment because as a child my books told me it had a permanent sunward side.)


The discovery of Mercury’s 3:2 orbital resonance is apparently quite recent, coming from the 60s or so. Apparently this was because of a coincidence in Mercury’s synodic period with Earth being twice its rotation period, making it look like it had the same face towards the Sun all the time.


Once rotation gets slow enough, the orbital period becomes an important factor in further change.

On its face, it is surprising that rotational direction can change, but rotational momentum is conserved not by individual bodies, but by the whole, interacting system, subject also to conservation of energy. So, momentum and energy trade around between bodies in complicated ways.




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