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Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

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41P, The Comet That Started Rotating In Reverse

For centuries, comets have been seen as mysterious travelers of the Solar System—icy bodies that light up the sky with glowing tails as they pass near the Sun. Astronomers have studied their paths, compositions, and behavior in great detail. Yet even today, comets can still surprise scientists in completely unexpected ways.

One such surprise came from 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák, a small, short-period comet that made history by doing something never observed before: it changed the direction of its rotation. In simple terms, this comet slowed its spin, stopped, and then began rotating backward. This remarkable discovery has given astronomers new clues about how comets evolve—and how they may ultimately be destroyed.

Meet Comet 41P: A Small but Extraordinary Visitor

Comet 41P is a relatively small object that orbits the Sun every five years or so. Like most comets, it is made of ice, dust, and rocky material. When it approaches the Sun, heat causes its icy surface to release gas and dust, forming a fuzzy cloud around the nucleus called a coma, along with a bright tail that always points away from the Sun.

Until recently, 41P seemed like just another ordinary comet. That changed dramatically in 2017.

The First Shock: A Spin That Slowed Down Dramatically

In early 2017, astronomers observed comet 41P using the Swift space telescope. By tracking repeating patterns in the comet’s coma, scientists were able to measure how fast the comet was spinning.

What they found was astonishing.

Before 2017, 41P completed one full rotation in about 20 hours. But between March and May 2017, its rotation slowed dramatically. By May, the comet took 48 hours to complete a single spin.

Changes in a comet’s rotation are not unusual—especially when it gets close to the Sun—but such a large and rapid slowdown had never been seen before. Astronomers were puzzled but excited. Something powerful was clearly acting on the comet.

Jets: The Invisible Engines on a Comet

To understand what happened, it helps to know how comets behave near the Sun.

As sunlight heats a comet’s surface, frozen gases turn directly into vapor and burst outward through cracks and weak spots. These outbursts form jets—powerful streams of gas and dust shooting into space.

Each jet acts like a tiny rocket engine. If jets are unevenly distributed across the comet’s surface, they can push and twist the nucleus, changing how fast it spins. Over time, these small pushes can add up to big changes in rotation.

In the case of 41P, scientists believe unusually strong or well-placed jets caused the comet to slow down far more than expected.

The Bigger Surprise: A Complete Spin Reversal

The real shock came later.

In December 2017, astronomers studied new images of comet 41P taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. These observations were analyzed by David Jewitt, a well-known expert on comets at the University of California, Los Angeles.

This time, the comet was doing the opposite of slowing down. Its rotation period had sped up to just 14 hours.

Even more incredible was the conclusion: the comet was now rotating in the opposite direction compared to earlier in 2017.

The only explanation was extraordinary. At some point between May and December—when the comet was too close to the Sun to observe—41P must have slowed its spin all the way to zero and then started rotating backward.

This was the first confirmed observation of a comet reversing its rotation direction.

Why This Discovery Matters

This strange behavior is more than just a curiosity. It may help answer one of the biggest questions in comet science: why small comets don’t last very long.

According to Jewitt, jets can sometimes make a comet spin faster and faster. If the rotation becomes too rapid, the comet’s weak structure may not hold together. It could crack, shed material, or even break apart completely—what Jewitt vividly describes as being “swept away by its own rotation.”

This idea could explain why astronomers observe fewer small comets than expected. Many may destroy themselves over time due to extreme rotational stress.

A Glimpse Into the Short Lives of Comets

Observations suggest that comets are fragile objects with relatively short lifespans, especially smaller ones like 41P. Every close pass to the Sun changes them—sometimes subtly, sometimes violently.

The case of 41P provides rare, direct evidence that rotation plays a key role in comet survival. It shows that even a small object can undergo dramatic physical changes in a very short time.

As Jewitt notes, something must be actively destroying comets, and rotation driven by jets is now a leading suspect.

What’s Next for Comet 41P?

Comet 41P is expected to return close to the Sun again in early 2028. By then, astronomers will have access to powerful new tools, including the Vera Rubin Observatory, which is designed to scan the sky repeatedly and collect enormous amounts of data.

With this observatory, scientists expect to discover many more comets and track their behavior in unprecedented detail. Events like spin slowdowns, speedups, and even reversals may turn out to be more common than we once thought.

A New Chapter in Comet Science

The discovery of 41P’s backward spin, first reported in a study posted on arXiv and submitted to The Astronomical Journal, marks a turning point in our understanding of comets.

As also highlighted by The New York Times, this small, faint object has reshaped how scientists think about comet evolution, stability, and destruction.

Conclusion: Small Comet, Big Lesson

Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák may not be the brightest or most famous comet in history, but it has earned a special place in astronomy. By slowing down, stopping, and spinning backward, it showed scientists that comets are far more dynamic—and fragile—than once believed.

In the silent depths of space, even a tiny icy body can rewrite the rules of cosmic behavior. And as new telescopes watch the skies, many more such surprises are surely waiting to be discovered.

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