When do you comets develop tails?

Answer 1

When the comet heats up when it

1. Enters the atmosphere.

The comet will burn up by air friction. The gasses released by this process will form the tail.

2. Get's close to the sun.

The comet will heat up and some of the comet's material will vaporize, forming a tail.

I'm afraid, part 1 is wrong. As explained in 2, a comet develops a tail well before it enters Earth's atmosphere. As a matter of fact, and luckily for us, comets very rarely enters the Earth's atmosphere.

An object that enters the atmosphere and leaves a trail of incandescent debris is called a meteor and what's left of it when it impact with Earth's surface is called a meteorite.

Answer 2

A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma (a thin, fuzzy, temporary atmosphere) and sometimes also a tail. In the outer solar system, comets remain frozen and are extremely difficult or impossible to detect from Earth due to their small size. 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. The streams of dust and gas thus released form a huge, extremely tenuous atmosphere around the comet called the coma, and 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. Thus, a tail of the coma was formed.

Answer 3

When they pass close to the sun, the heat creates vapor which becomes a tail

Answer 4

When it gets near to the sun. The sun's radiation pressure and solar causes dust and gas to stream away from the core.

Answer 5

When they become subject to solar heating.