Why does the comet tail point away from the sun?

Answer 1

The sun ejects solar winds which move much faster than any comet. This causes a stream of material (the tail) to point away from the Sun, irrespective of the direction the comet is travelling. The Sun's radiation may also have an effect. (Source: Wikipedia)Bad definition!

Answer 2

Comet tails point away from the sun because of solar wind. The photons from the sun work like wind and blow the tail away from the sun like a wind would blow a flag. These photons sweep the ions from the comet away from the sun.

Answer 3

Comets have two tails. One is a dust tail that follows behind the comet, where the comet has physically been. The other tail is an ion tail that is blown away by the solar wind, so is always pointing directly away from the sun.

Answer 4

A comet's tail is a result of the solar wind blowing ice and dust from its surface. Therefore its tail will always be in the opposite direction from the sun, no matter in what direct it is moving.

Answer 5

comet tails, when the observation was made that comet tails pointed away from the sun regardless of what direction it was moving in in relation to the sun. IE the comet is always between the sun and and the tail. Kepler in the early 1600s guessed that those tails were driven by the pressure of sunlight, and his guess still holds true for the many comet tails which consist of dust.

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Answer 6

A comet generally has two tails, not one. One tail is due to the comet's dust particles, the other is due to ionized gas from the comet coma.

Dust particles form the first tail. This comet tail generally points back along the comet path (so if the comet is traveling right, the dust tail extends to the left).

Ions (electrically charged particles), which first come from the nucleus as (neutral) gaseous particles, are swept into the second comet tail. Because of the special interaction with the Sun's magnetic field, this tail always points directly away from the Sun.

Answer 7

Comets have two tails: the dust tail, which is basically a trail of uncharged dust left behind along the comet's orbit, which doesn't have any particular relation to the Sun, and the ion tail, which always points away from the Sun because of the solar wind.

Answer 8

they do not point away from the sun, they point in the opposite direction that it is travelling - the sun has nothing to do with the direction a comet travels in. Also if a comet's tail was pointing toward the sun the sun's powerful light will cause it to appear faint, LAST EDITED: 9/6/2012 3:12 PM KSA

Answer 9

The comet tail points away from the sun because of solar wind. Solar wind is a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun that pushes the comet's gas and dust away from the sun, forming the tail.

Answer 10

A comets tail is pushes away from the sun by solar winds .This also means that the tail can be in front or behind the comet