Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? The Hubble Space Telescope has witnessed a spinning comet slow its own rotation and then start spinning in the opposite direction, in the first observation of its kind demonstrating that comets can be even more dynamic than we thought. Comet 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresák is a Jupiter-family comet, meaning that it is a short-period comet (orbiting the sun every 5.4 years) that has come in from the Kuiper Belt before being snagged by Jupiter's gravity. 41P's last close approach to the sun — known as perihelion — was in September 2022, but it was the previous close approach in 2017 that was observed by the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as several other telescopes including NASA's space-based Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the four-meter (13 foot) Lowell Discovery Telescope in Arizona.…