To act as examples, the orbits of 3 famous comets are likewise included: two short-period comets, 67P/Churyumov– Gerasimenko (the target of ESAs Rosetta mission) and 1P/Halley, and a long-period comet, Siding Spring, which reached its closest method to the Sun in late 2014.
The primary parts of a comet– nucleus, coma, hydrogen plasma, dust, and envelope tails– indicating their composition, relative sizes, and location. The diagrams are representative and not to scale. Credit: ESA.
Artists illustration of a comet skyrocketing through space.
Comets are cosmic snowballs, the frozen leftovers from the development of the planetary system composed of frozen gases, dust, and rock. They vary in size from a couple of miles to tens of miles wide, but as they orbit closer to the Sun, they warm up and gush gases and dust into a glowing head that can be bigger than a planet. This material forms a tail that extends countless miles.
The following infographic reveals the main components of a comet– nucleus, coma, hydrogen envelope, plasma, and dust tails– showing their structure, relative sizes, and location.
Listed below that, the 2 primary tanks of comets in the Solar System are shown: the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud.
By European Area Company (ESA).
June 18, 2022.