Is the sun at the center of a comets orbit?

Answer 1

It is highly imporbable that any comet follows a circular orbit. They are much more likely to follow long eliptical orbits in their eccentric wanderings through the inner and outer solar system. Surf the link to our friends at Wikipedia for some pics and more data.

Answer 2

Most Comets do orbit the Sun. Comets have a variety of different orbital periods, ranging from a few years, to hundreds of thousands of years. However, there are some comets that approach the Sun on trajectories that mean that once they have passed the sun they are flung out into interstellar space, never to return.

Answer 3

Yes. Comets originate from an area far out on the outskirts of the Solar System far beyond the orbit of Pluto and the other outer dwarf planets. This area is known as the Oort Cloud, and consists of millions of lumps of ice/rock under the influence of the sun's gravity. If one of these lumps collides with another then one of the fragments can easily be captured in a tighter orbit around the sun. Some of these comets have an orbital period of just a few years, the most famous being Halley's Comet with a period of 76 years. Others that have much longer orbits can have periods of thousands of years. The lump of icy rock travels towards the sun in an elongated orbit. When approaching the sun the sun's solar wind and stream of ionised particles helps melt some of the ice forming the characteristic tail of the comet. Contrary to popular belief, the tail doesn't 'follow' the comet - it is always pointed aay from the sun, so on the comet's approach towards the sun it does follow the comet, but as the comet rotates around the sun to return to the outer parts of the solar system the comet actually follows the tail. Comets usually have two tails, formed by the solar wind, because the solar wind accelertates material from the comet at different velocities and so the heavier dust tail appears as a white cloud whereas a 'plasma' tail apppears as a much thinner longer tail as the lighter plasma particles are removed from the comet at a much higher speed. After the comet passes the sun, it returns to where it started, and the whole process starts again. At each passing of the sun the comet loses some material, and so there will come a time when the comet will eventually die away as the materials in it are used up.

Answer 4

There are two types of comets. Short period comets orbit in the plane of the ecliptic. Their orbits bring them well within the orbit of Jupiter, typically, and out beyond the orbit of Pluto, in great elongated ellipses that require roughly a century to traverse. The source of short period comets is thus suspected to be a belt of icy objects known as the Kuiper Belt.

Long period comets do not orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, but are apt to come in from any direction on a trajectory requiring thousands of years to complete. These objects are hypothesized to originate in a spherical shell known as the Oort Cloud.

Answer 5

highly elliptical, like a giant oval
All orbits are ellipses. Orbits of planets are close to circular, but the orbits for comets can be very eccentric; stretched out.

Some comets aren't in proper orbits; they make a single pass near the Sun and then escape to interstellar space, never to return. These comets are called "hyperbolic", because their path follows the curve of a hyperbola, which is open and never closes in on itself.

Answer 6

Yes, comets have extremely elongated elliptical orbits.

The reason is fairly simple. A comet becomes a comet, rather than just another rock, by the vaporization of volatile gasses frozen on its surface. It is these gasses, glowing in the sunlight, that make the comet visible at all.

In order to survive very long, the comet must spend most of its time far away from the Sun, where the ices can remain frozen. But if the comet stays out in the frozen zones, then the ice won't melt, the comet will never have a tail, and will never be visible as a comet. But if the object had a more circular orbit, it would have melted and lost all of its volatile gasses long ago.

Answer 7

Everything in space orbits arounds the sun so yes.

FAIL. Only Copernicus thinks that. Comets do orbit around the sun, but not everything does.

Answer 8

No, comets orbit the Sun, not the other way around. The Sun's gravitational pull keeps comets in their orbits, causing them to move in elliptical paths around the Sun.

Answer 9

Not all comets orbit the sun, although most do. When they do orbit the Sun their orbit tends to be oval.

Answer 10

Comets do have orbits, but they are immensely longer than planetary orbits, at least in the Solar System.