All about Rotation

Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. Yes, we all see it happen like clockwork every day of our lives.

Just in case you didn't realize, it also means the Sun is rotating and so is the Earth. In other words, Earth revolves around the Sun while the Sun also rotates around its axis.

Wonderful! Everything is rotating. Now, let's look at our rotating Earth and the direction of rotation.

We all live in an anti-clockwise ⟲ solar system. If you can stand outside the solar system and look down upon it from above the North pole of the Sun (or the Earth), you would see that nearly all the bodies in the solar system are in rotation which is anti-clockwise. The exceptions are Venus, Uranus, Neptune and few asteroids, comets. More on it follows.

Our star, the Sun rotates on its axis in an anti-clockwise direction. Our planet, the Earth also rotates on its axis in an anti-clockwise direction. Unless you haven't realized, the Earth revolves around the Sun in an anti-clockwise direction. All the other major planets, and most of the minor planets (asteroids) also orbit the Sun in an anti-clockwise direction. A few comets orbit in the opposite, or clockwise ⟳ direction. Most of the planets rotate about their respective axis in an anti-clockwise direction. This is called prograde rotation (as opposed to retrograde rotation aka clock-wise rotation).

Venus and Neptune are exceptions. Venus has a very slow clockwise rotation (again, the term is retrograde), and Uranus, although it rotates every 15.5 hours, has its equator inclined at almost a right angle to its orbital plane. It is thus difficult to know whether to describe the rotation of Uranus as prograde with an equatorial inclination of 98° or retrograde with an inclination of 82°.

If most of planetary systems are rotating anti-clockwise ⟲ and we live on the Earth which also rotates anti-clockwise ⟲, why do our watches and clocks rotate clockwise ⟳ ?

Our clocks rotate clockwise because their design origins are in Shadow aka Sundial clocks and a sundial clock in Northern hemisphere would have the hour numbers oriented clockwise given that is how the shadow would move relative to the Sun.