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Astronomy
Schematic description of a comet:
Dust tail; |
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Ion tail |
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Internal Coma:
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Jets |
Normally, comets are far away from the sun and the planets. They are in the Oort Cloud (beyond Pluto’s orbit) or in the Kuiper Belt (beyond Neptune’s orbit). At times, from these clouds of comet nucleus one is diverted from a course to the inside of the solar system by gravitation disturbances. One differentiates between short-periodic (period of revolution shorter than 200 years) and long-periodic comets (period of revolution longer than 200 years up to 107 years)
The two most important parts of a comet are its head and tail. The coma develops due to starting subliming the volatile gases at the convergence to the sun. Therefore, it is an extensive atmosphere consisting of gas and dust.
The particles are then forced back into two different, mostly clearly separated, tail components of dust and gas by radiation and charged particles flowing from the sun (solar wind).