What cosmic event would cause Sun rising from the west?

Question

I'm wondering what kind of astronomical or geological events would cause the reversal of Earth's rotation. For instance, Is a meteorite passing very close to Earth able to reverse its rotation? Can the presence of Earth inside extreme magnetic field cause such event?

Answer 1

If you are asking whether the rotation of the Earth could be brought to a stop, then rotated in the other direction, then I know of no way this could be done. I can't think of any way to exert the torque necessary to do this on a short timescale. In principle the tidal forces of the Sun will eventually slow the Earth's rotation so it always shows the same face to the Sun. However I suspect this would be such a slow process that the Sun will have formed a red giant and swallowed the Earth before it's complete.

However it is not unknown for the axis of rotation of planets to change. In fact Venus rotates in a retrograde direction so it's likely that it's axis of rotation has flipped 180º at some point in it's history. The axis of Mars is believed to move in a chaotic way and it too could flip. In this sense the rotation of planets can be reversed.

The slow changes in the axis of Mars are due to interactions with other bodies in the Solar System and take place over multi-million year timescales. However it is in principle possible for the axis of rotation to be changed by collisions with other bodies. The axis of Uranus is at around 90º to the axis of the Solar System, and this may be due to a collision with an Earth size protoplanet in the early stages of the Solar System formation.

But to return to the original question, the rotation of the Earth is stabilised by the presence of the Moon and is unlikely to flip in the way Mars could. A collision with a sufficiently large object could change the axis of rotation, as probably happened to Uranus, but none of the asteroids Earth could possible collide with are big enough to do this. Boring though it seems, we are stuck with our North and South poles (approximately) where they are.

Answer 2

An asteroid passing close by would result in less angular momentum being transferred than one colliding with the earth.

XKCD did a similar calculation here for preventing the slowing of the earth's rotation in order to avoid leap seconds. The short answer is:

Here’s the bad news: To get enough spin, we have to hit the Earth with on the order of a billion liters of rock per second (several times the volumetric discharge rate of the Amazon). This adds up to about one six-mile dinosaur-killing asteroid every couple days. Humanity—and life—wouldn’t survive the bombardment long.

The volume of colliding rock needed to actually reverse the rotation of the earth would be sufficient to melt the whole surface. A collision like that hasn't happened for a few billion years.

An extremely strong magnetic field would likely just reverse the polarity of the earth's magnetic dynamo and have very little effect on it's rotation.

Answer 3

Is a meteorite passing very close to Earth able to reverse its rotation?

A meteorite is an asteroid (or other object) that enters the Earth's atmosphere.

Rotational Energy of planet Earth

As the Earth has a period of about 23.93 hours, it has an angular velocity of $7.29×10^{−5} rad/s$. The Earth has a moment of inertia, $I = 8.04×10^{37} kg·m2$.[1] Therefore, it has a rotational kinetic energy of $2.138×10^{29} J$.

Tunguska event was probably around $5×10^{15} J$

The Chicxulub impact that is thought to have killed the dinosaurs is estmated to have had an energy of $4.2×10^{23} J$

So we are still at least six orders of magnitude short.

To achieve this without an actual impact seems far less possible.

Answer 4

The universe now is expanding but its momentum will end and it will stop expanding and a reverse action will occur due to the force of gravitation . It is then when all the universe will shift gear backwards . Thus reversing the motion of the constellations , their stars and their planets . No body knows the speed of the expansion of universe or when it will stop or the speed of its recoil . It is then when the sun rises from the West . That is the simple truth and if some one disagrees with this I will be more than grateful for his input . Thank you all .