Artist’s illustration of a comet hovering by way of house.
Comets are cosmic snowballs, the frozen leftovers from the formation of the photo voltaic system composed of frozen gases, mud, and rock. They vary in dimension from just a few miles to tens of miles large, however as they orbit nearer to the Sun, they warmth up and spew gases and mud right into a glowing head that may be bigger than a planet. This materials varieties a tail that stretches hundreds of thousands of miles.
The following infographic exhibits the principle parts of a comet – nucleus, coma, hydrogen envelope, mud, and plasma tails – indicating their composition, relative sizes, and location.
Below that, the two main reservoirs of comets in the Solar System are shown: the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud.
To serve as examples, the orbits of three famous comets are also included: two short-period comets, 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (the target of ESA’s Rosetta mission) and 1P/Halley, and a long-period comet, Siding Spring, which reached its closest approach to the Sun in late 2014.
The main components of a comet – nucleus, coma, hydrogen envelope, dust, and plasma tails – indicating their composition, relative sizes, and location. The diagrams are representative and not to scale. Credit: ESA
