New answers tagged comets
10
The confusion comes from the difference between the nucleus and the coma.
The nucleus is a small icy body, only a few km across.
The coma is the cloud of gas and dust released from the nucleus as it warms up. With not much gravity, the coma spreads out into space, and it can be hard to say exactly where the edge of the coma lies, however, a coma "the size ...
5
The nucleus of the comet is small and dark. We never see comet nuclei with the naked eye. The visible part of a comet is the coma and sometimes the tail which are made of dust and gas that have vaporised off the comet's nucleus by the heat of the sun.
Now comets are unpredictable. They get more active, producing more dust as they get nearer the sun, ...
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