Comets

Did you know.......as the comet comes closer to the sun , the pressure of the sunlight pushes the dust , making a glowing tail?  The tail of a comet always points away from the sun and when a comet travels away from the sun, it's tail is in front?  Comet West's Type II dust tail measured about fifty million miles in length? At least fifteen hundred comets have been seen and recorded in the past two thousand years? Some comets come close to the sun then travel far out into space, beyond the orbit of Pluto?

Here is the description of comets. A comet is only a few miles wide, too small to be seen from Earth. A comet's tail is so thin that it is the closest thing to nothing. Scientist believe that some comets may have been broken into smaller comets by passing too close to a planet or to the sun.  A comet has an icy core, or nucleus, covered by a layer of black dust.

    The orbit of a comet is different depending on the comet. Comets that return to the sun at least once every 200 years are often called "short-period comets." About 40 comets have orbits that carry them only as far as the orbit of Jupiter. As a comet orbits closer to the sun, the ice begins to change from solid into a gas. Many comets have probably slammed into Earth during our planet's history. The Oort cloud, when comets roam, is halfway to the nearest star, 3,720 trillion miles from the sun.

        Comet Halley is a very famous comet. Edmund Halley was the first person to suggest that comets are members of our solar system. Halley's Comet was named in his honor. Comet Halley was recorded in 1531, 1607, and 1682. It last approached the sun in 1986, and will return again in 2061.Comet Halley comes no closer than 89 million kilometers from the sun. Halley the comet is about 10 miles (16km) long and 5 miles (8km) wide. It is coated with organic molecules that make Halley's surface darker than charcoal.