Make a wish as you explore a shooting star. When comets skid the sun and grace our sky with its own acrobatic light show, we gaze in wonder at its beauty and elegance. Up close, it really just looks like a filthy snowball that orbits the sun. It is composed of dust, ice, carbon dioxide, ammonia and methane. They are believed to live in a comet land called Oort Cloud. This area is beyond the orbit of Pluto, very far away from Earth. This is why they come only on occasion, to grant hopeful viewers a wish.

Comets are almost like the tadpoles of the sky, because they have heads and tails. It's head is called a coma. The coma is formed when the icy core of the comet boils off and forms a cloud of gassy dust, after it has come near the Sun. They are only visible in our sky though, when the light of the sun hits it and reflects off the shooting star's cloud. The comet produces more gas, the closer it gets to the Sun. Charged particles from the sun, known as solar wind, push away the gas and the dust of the comet. This leads to the forming of a blue tail from ionized gas, and a yellow tail from dust particles. These joined tails always point in the opposite direction away from the sun. Meteor showers occur when Earth passes the path of a comet because it trails along leaving dust and ice to rain on Earth, even after years of its passing. So next time this happens be sure to get out your umbrellas.