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A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing.This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or coma surrounding the nucleus, and sometimes a tail of gas and dust gas blown out from the coma.
A comet tail and coma are visible features of a comet when they are illuminated by the Sun and may become visible from Earth when a comet passes through the inner Solar System. As a comet approaches the inner Solar System, solar radiation causes the volatile materials within the comet to vaporize and stream out of the nucleus , carrying dust ...
As the comet warms, parts of it sublimate; [1] this gives a comet a diffuse appearance when viewed through telescopes and distinguishes it from stars. The word coma comes from the Greek κόμη (kómē), which means "hair" and is the origin of the word comet itself. [2] [3] The coma is generally made of ice and comet dust. [1]
Comet orbits had been determined quite precisely, yet comets were at times recovered "off-schedule," by as much as days. Early comets could be explained by a "resisting medium"—such as "the aether", or the cumulative action of meteoroids against the front of the comet(s). [citation needed] But comets could return both early and late. Whipple ...
On 2 January 2025, Terry Lovejoy reported that the comet experienced an outburst, [9] estimating its magnitude to be 3.7 photographically and 3.2 visually. On 3 January the comet had brightened to a magnitude of 2–2.4. The comet was reported to have a nuclear shadow, a dark lane in the tail, and was marginally visible with naked eye on that ...
On Wednesday, the comet made its closest approach to our sun and on Saturday, October 12 at 11:39 a.m. it will be just 43,911,824 miles from Earth (its closest pass).
When a comet enters the inner Solar System, its proximity to the Sun causes its icy surface to sublimate and ionise, creating a coma: a long tail of gas and dust often visible to the naked eye. [233] Short-period comets have orbits lasting less than two hundred years. Long-period comets have orbits lasting thousands of years.
One of the comets in the manuscript has four tails and resembles a swastika. In their 1985 book Comet, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan argue that the appearance of a rotating comet with a four-pronged tail as early as 2,000 years BCE could explain why the swastika is found in the cultures of both the Old World and the pre-Columbian Americas.