Back to Tour the Solar SystemLesson 20 of 30
VVASTWARD

J02

Tour the Solar SystemModule 7Asteroids, Comets, and Samples
Module 7 / Lesson 20 of 3028 min
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Why does a comet grow tails near the Sun?

How does sunlight turn a dark frozen nucleus into a coma with two differently shaped tails?

Follow heat into surface ice, gas and dust out of the nucleus, and solar wind along a separate ion tail.

Active comet near the Sun with a bright coma, curved dust tail, and narrow blue ion tail.
Vastward artistic reconstruction. Tail color, length, camera viewpoint, and activity are composed to make two physical processes visible.

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