Comets, Asteroids, and Meteors

A Comet’s Head When a comet comes too close to a sun or star it begins to release gas as its ice melts. These clouds and gas form a fuzzy layer known as a coma that surrounds the head of the comet. Comet’s also have a solid inner core made up of rock and iron. The coma and nucleus make up the brightest part of the comet.

A Comet’s Tail As the comet heats up and produces its coma the gas also flows backward and produces a tail. The name comet in Greek means “long-haired star”. Most comets have two tails: a gas tail, and a dust tail. Both tails point away from the sun. Some tales can be hundreds of millions miles long.

Where do comets come from? Comets come from two very distance regions of the solar system: the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud. The Kuiper Belt is donut shaped and extends beyond the region of Neptune’s Orbit. The Oort Cloud is a spherical region that spans out over 1000 times the distance from the sun to Pluto