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BookmarkA comet is a small body in the solar system that orbits the Sun and (at least occasionally) exhibits a coma (or atmosphere) and/or a tail - both primarily from the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus, which itself is a minor body composed of rock, dust, and ices.
Comets' orbits are constantly changing: their origins are in the outer solar system, and they have a propensity to be highly affected (or perturbed) by relatively close approaches to the major planets.
Some are moved into sungrazing orbits that destroy the comets when they near the Sun, while others are thrown out of the solar system forever..
For more information about the topic Comet, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
Comet Hale-Bopp — Comet Hale-Bopp was probably the most widely observed comet of the 20th century, and one of the brightest seen for many decades. It was visible to ... > read more
Asteroid belt — The asteroid belt is a region of the solar system falling roughly between the planets Mars and Jupiter where the greatest concentration of asteroid ... > read more
Near-Earth asteroid — Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are asteroids whose orbits are close to Earth's orbit. Some NEAs' orbits intersect Earth's so they pose a collision ... > read more
Near-Earth object — Near-Earth objects (NEO) are asteroids, comets and large meteoroids whose orbit intersects Earth's orbit and which may therefore pose a collision ... > read moreNote: This page refers to an article that is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the article Comet at Wikipedia.org. See the Wikipedia copyright page for more details.
