Comets are composed mostly of

Answer 1

Comet tails are made up primarily of dust, rock, and gas expelled from the comet as it is heated by the Sun. The frozen gases expand and throw off material, some of which is blown by the solar wind into a "tail" for the comet.

(The tail is always pointing away from the Sun.)

melted materials (apex)

Answer 2

Comets are composed mostly of ice, dust, rock, and organic compounds. The ice consists of water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and methane. This composition gives comets their characteristic tails when they approach the Sun and the heat causes the ice to vaporize.

Answer 3

After the nuculeus is formed around the comet, ice begins to vapourise when it approaches the sun. Dust is then exposed at the surface of the nuculeus, then gas and dust are ejected to form a coma. The coma then grows and pressure of solar radiation and wind eject gas molecules and the dust from the coma formes a tail.

Answer 4

Comet's have two tails: a dust tail and a plasma tail.

A plasma tail is formed when the UV radiation from the sun pierces a hole into the comet. Ice in the comet is ejected out of the hole and undergoes a process called sublimation (from solid to gas, bypassing the liquid phase. When the water vapor is ejected from the hole, it is under such tremendous pressure that the electrons are literally stripped off the atoms, leaving them positively charged. The positively charged water vapor is then repelled by the positively charged particles coming from the solar wind. This leaves the plasma tail behind the comet.

Dust tails are formed by the dust that simply comes of the commet. It too interacts with the sun's solar wind and is deflected back to trail the comet. The dust tail however, is slightly curved because dust particles are more massive and have more inertia. They therefore retain the motion of the comets orbit.

Answer 5

Comets are made up of rock, dust, waterice, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and ammonia. They are also known to contain orgainic chemicals such as methanol, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, ethanoland ethane. They might even contain more complex orgainic chemicals such as hydrocarbons and amino acids.

When they approach the sun, solar radiation vapourises the more volitile chemicals releasing all the chemicals and dust trapped in the comet into the coma and eventually into the tail of the comet.

Answer 6

Comet tails are mostly nothing at all. As comets approach the sun, the ice in the comet will begin to sublimate, or evaporate into gas with a little dust. Sunlight hits the dust and gas, and lights it up; that's what we see.

But even in the thickest part of the comet tail, it is mostly a hard vacuum. In 1910, the Earth went right through the tail of Halley's Comet, with no harmful effects at all.

Answer 7

light reflecting off of vaporizing ice and dust!

Answer 8

there are 2 types of tails. a gas tail and a dust tail. the gas tail is made up of ions.

Answer 9

The "tail" of a comet is made of reflective particles of ice and dust that were thrown off the comet as it partially evaporates in the inner solar system.

Answer 10

when a comet goes nears the sun, and begins to out-gas, solar wind pushes the particles away. as the comet nears the sun, more & more particles are emitted, and the tail is formed.