COMET’ S

TALE
WHAT IS COMET?
A comet is an icy, small Solar System
body that, when passing close to the Sun,
warms and begins to release gases, a process
called outgassing. This produces a visible
atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also
a tail. These phenomena are due to the effects
of solar radiation and the solar wind acting
upon the nucleus of the comet.
The nucleus is the solid, central part of
a comet, popularly termed a dirty snowball or
an icy dirtball. A cometary nucleus is
composed of rock, dust, and frozen gases.
When heated by the Sun, the
gases sublimate and produce an atmosphere
surrounding the nucleus known as the coma.
The force exerted on the coma by the
Sun's radiation pressure and solar wind cause
an enormous tail to form, which points away
from the Sun.
The coma is the nebulous envelope around
the nucleus of a comet, formed when the comet
passes close to the Sun on its
highly elliptical orbit; as the comet warms,
parts of it sublime. This gives a comet a
"fuzzy" appearance when viewed
in telescopes and distinguishes it from stars.
The word coma comes from the Greek "kome"
which means "hair" and is the origin of the
word comet itself.
A comet tail—and coma—are features visible in
comets when they are illuminated by the Sun and
may become visible from Earth when a comet
passes through the inner Solar System . As a
comet approaches the inner Solar System, solar
radiation causes the volatile materials within the
comet to vaporize and stream out of the nucleus,
carrying dust away with them.
Separate tails are formed of dust and
gases, becoming visible through
different phenomena; the dust reflects
sunlight directly and the gases glow
from ionization. Most comets are too
faint to be visible without the aid of
a telescope, but a few each decade
become bright enough to be visible to
the naked eye.