dust tail

properties of comets

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  In comet: General considerations

  …glowing comae and their long dust tails and ion tails. Comets can appear at random from any direction and provide a fabulous and ever-changing display for many months as they move in highly eccentric orbits around the Sun.

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  In comet: General considerations

  The dust tail forms from those dust particles and is blown back by solar radiation pressure to form a long curving tail that is typically white or yellow in colour. The ion tail forms from the volatile gases in the coma when they are ionized by…

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  In comet: The modern era

  …from the Sun, and the dust (Type II) tails coming from solar radiation pressure on the fine dust particles emitted from the comet.

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  In comet: Tails

  …which is known as a Type II tail. The grains are blown into a larger orbit than the comet nucleus, and that results in their slowing because of the laws of planetary motion, causing them to lag behind the nucleus. The dust follows the comet around its orbit but eventually…

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