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Basically nitrogen and hydrogen.
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What is the two tail of a comet made of?
One tail is gas, and the other ice. The darker, colored tail is gas, and the white easy-to-see tail is ice.
What gives comets there tails?
A comet contains a lot of rocks and frozen water. As the comet approaches the sun, it starts to get warmer. The water on its surface begins to evaporate. The solar wind blows it away from the comet. When the water vapor gets away from the comet, it turns into water or ice. People can not see water vapor. They can see drops of water and ice. The evaporated water vapor streams behind the comet carried by the solar wind. The comet comes close to the sun and then goes back. The solar wind keeps blowing its tail away from the direction of the sun.
What are three main parts of a comet?
A comet's 3 main parts are nucleus, coma and tail. The nucleus is the heart of a comet. A coma is the gas and dust that forms a cloud around the nucleus. The tail is a blazing streamer from the coma, it is million of miles long
Why do comets tail always stream away from the sun?
Comet tails always stream away from the sun due to the solar wind, which is a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun. The solar wind pushes against the gas and dust particles in the comet's coma (a cloud of gas and dust surrounding the nucleus) and causes them to form a tail that points away from the sun.
What names are given to different comets?
Comets are named after the people who have discovered it or by the shape or after break away from a parent comet. eg: Halley's comet Tempel-Tuffle comet Biela's comet Encke's comet Ikeya Seki comet kooutek comet comet west comet Bowell comet IRAS -Araki-Alcock Comet Austin.
What is a ball of ice dust and gasses that travels through space and orbits the sun?
a comet/meteorite
What state of matter is comets?
The nucleus of a comet is mostly solid, while the coma and tail of the comet is composed of gasses and (we believe) a lot of dust. As the comet approaches the Sun, sunlight heats the nucleus of the comet and melts some of the frozen gasses, which sublimate into space carrying dust into space, forming the coma and the tail of the comet.
Where do the 3 main parts of a comet go?
The three main parts of a comet are the Nucleus, the Coma, and the Tail. The nucleus is the comet itself. In deep space, the comet is frozen solid and almost invisible. As the comet approaches the sun, the Sun's light heats the nucleus of the comet and causes frozen gasses to melt or sublimate, forming a sort of atmosphere around the comet. This is the "Coma" of the comet. The sunlight causes the gasses around the comet to glow. But the gravity of the comet's nucleus isn't strong enough to hold on to an atmosphere, and the Sun's rays push the glowing gasses away from the nucleus, directly away from the Sun. This stream of glowing gas is the "tail" of the comet. It's important to note that the tail of a comet doesn't drag behind the nucleus; the "tail" goes straight from the nucleus away from the Sun, so the "tail" sometimes extends AHEAD of the comet. Because the material of the comet nucleus gets melted and loses mass every pass by the Sun, comets have a limited lifespan. At some point, each comet will break apart into pieces and disappear, leaving only a meteor shower in its wake.
What pushes particles in a comets tail?
The pressure of the sun's light shining on the wispy gasses vaporizing from the comet's head push the tail of the comet away from the sun. While it looks like the "tail" of the comet is trailing behind, the tail always points away from the Sun. So after the comet's perihelion (the closest approach to the Sun) the "tail" is actually LEADING the comet!
What is the two tail of a comet made of?
One tail is gas, and the other ice. The darker, colored tail is gas, and the white easy-to-see tail is ice.
What comes off the comet when it gets closer to the sun?
Assorted gasses like carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, plus dust.
Do meteoroids hava a mass of frozen gases?
Normally not. If the object had much in the way of frozen gasses, then approaching the Sun would heat it enough vaporize the gasses, which would make it a comet rather than a meteoroid.
Contrast comet with asteroid?
A comet has a highly elliptical orbit that swings it in close to the Sun for a short period, and then far out away from the Sun for a much longer period. The essence of "comet" is that when it is close to the Sun, the volatile gasses boil away carrying very reflective dust and gas into space. The Sun lights up these gasses and dust, causing the tail of the comet to glow. Asteroids are generally in orbits that are less extremely elliptical, don't get all THAT close to the Sun, and have no volatile gasses that can boil off and glow in the sunshine. A large number of asteroids are in the toroidal asteroid "belt", a huge doughnut-shaped region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. However, there are plenty of asteroids that swing in between Jupiter and somewhere near the Earth. It's possible that these asteroids were once comets, but which have lost all their volatile gasses and no longer glow.
Why do comets have long trails?
Comets have been compared to "dirty snowballs", made of rocks and dust held together with frozen gasses. When a comet starts to come near the Sun, the sunlight begins to heat it up, vaporizing some of the frozen gasses. The dust in the ice is carried away with the vapor, and the light pressure from the Sun pushes the very light dust and vapor away from the comet's nucleus. The light illuminates the dusty vapor, and we see the comet's tail begin to grow as the comet comes closer to the Sun.The length of the tail is dependent on the nature of the frozen gasses, and on how much dust the tail carries away, and on how close the comet comes to the Sun. Some comets don't come especially close to the Sun, while some come VERY close. And some comets fall into the Sun completely. (The size of any comet is so tiny compared to the size of the Sun that a comet-Sun collision has no effect on the Sun at all. It would have less impact than the force of a mosquito hitting the windshield of a train.)
Does a comet tail always face away from the sun?
Yes it does. The tail is formed from the cosmic 'wind' hitting the comet as it comes close to the Sun. Since the cosmic wind is always blowing away from the Sun's surface - the comet's tail will always stream away from the Sun.
Who is Dr Fred Whipple and explain his hypothesis?
Whipple came up with the "dirty snowball" concept of comets; that the head of the comet is primarily ice and frozen gasses bound together by dust, gravel and rocks. This explains the nature of the "tail" of the comet; as the frozen gasses sublimate away (change from solid to gas, without an intervening liquid state) the gas is carried away by the solar wind and by pressure of the sunlight itself.
What is a comets temperature?
The temperature on a comet will vary by its position in its orbit. Comets have been compared to "dirty snowballs" of frozen methane, nitrogen, ammonia and carbon dioxide, with some dust and rocks mixed in. Far from the sun, which is where comets spend most of their time, the temperature will approach the 4 degree Kelvin (minus 269 degrees Celsius) "temperature" of deep space. As the comet falls in toward the Sun, the Sun's radiation heats the comet unevenly, causing "outgassing" as the frozen gasses of the comet are sublimated to form the tail of the comet.
