Comets, Where do the comets come from?

            Comets are the leftover material after the formation of the solar system. These are formed 4.6 billion years ago. A comet consists of dust, rock, and snow. There are more than 3000 known comets. But these are millions in number. Comets usually travel at safe distance from the Sun.  Some of the comets are attracted closer to the Sun and they collide with Sun and evaporate.

Where do the comets come from?

Comets are frozen rocks of predictable or nonpredictable revolution periods. These are the objects that come from the Kuiper belt or Oort cloud. The comets that come from the Kuiper belt( circumstellar disc beyond the orbit of Neptune, it is a massive belt that has the remnant of the solar system) have a short revolution period i.e, less than 200 years, these are called predictable comets. The comets that come from the Oort cloud are unpredictable comets as they take more than 200 years to orbit the Sun. These comets come from a distance of more than 100000 AU.

 Comet can be a predictable short period comet or an unpredictable long-period comet. The short period comment has a Revolution period of about 200 years. The unpredictable comet has a longer period of revolution around the Sun. The comet comes from a dark cloud beyond Pluto known as the Oort cloud. These are 100000 AU away from Sun. These take 30 million a year to orbit around Sun.

 Structure of comet

A comet has nucleus, coma and tail.

Structurally a comet has a nucleus that is only a few kilometers in diameter. It consists of solid rock. It is solid just like a planet. It has frozen ice on it. It is surrounded by a cloud known as a coma.  A comet when coming closer to the Sun. The Frozen material, ice, and gases melt and form the tail of a comet. It consists of an atmosphere made of dust, gases, and ions. These gases form the tail of the comet. This tail is millions of kilometers in length. Solarwinds push these gases away from the nucleus. A comet may have more than one tail.

Orbit around the Sun

 A tail travels behind the comet when it comes closer to the sun and the tail moves forward when the comet goes away from the Sun. Comet shines when they are closer to the sun due to the reflected light of the Sun.

 The solar radiation pushes the tail away from Sun when a comet approaches Sun.

 Comet keeps away from Sun as far as 89 million kilometers so that they cannot collide with the sun. If comet comes closer to the Sun, it will collide with the Sun and it will be evaporated.

The tail of the comet shows different colors. It is due to the different types of gases, it has in its composition.

When coming closer to the Sun comet develops an atmosphere and this atmosphere is called a coma from which they have drawn their name. Solarwinds push away the comma or the atmosphere of the comet. This form their tail.

Naming the comets

 Comet gets their name from the person or the spacecraft which has discovered them. Spacecrafts have been more successful in finding out the comets so the comets have been named after them. The tail of Comet can stretch to millions of miles.  The comets come from the Kuiper belt and even from the Oort cloud. These are millions in number but the current known number is 3743 comets.  Comets revolve around the Sun, just like planets but their orbit is too long.