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Science & Technology
Posted by Aparajita Karmakar on May 18, 2021 at 11:34 amWhat are comets?
Aashutosh replied 3 years, 6 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply -
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Comets
Comets are celestial objects consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust. When they orbit near the sun, a ‘tail’ of gas and dust particles points away from the sun. They are frozen mass of gases of the solar system composed of dust, rock, and ices. Their range may vary from a few miles to tens of miles wide. When they orbit closer to the sun, they get heated up and spew gases and dust. They also change into glowing heads that can even be larger than a planet. This material called tails and can even stretch millions of miles.
In a frozen state, their size can be that of a small town. There might be billions of comets that are orbiting our Sun in the universe.
The current number of comets is: <b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>3,723
Comets orbit around the Sun just like planets and asteroids do, except for a fact that the comet orbit is very elongated.
As the comet orbits closer to the Sun, some of the ice that comets are composed of starts to melt and even boil off, along with the particles of dust. These particles and gases form a cloud around the nucleus which is called a coma.
The coma is lit by the Sun. The sunlight forms the tail which appears to be the beautiful brightly lit tail of the comet.
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