Comets develop the spectacular long tails that they are known for by approaching the Sun. When they get too close, their icy volatile materials begin to sublimate away, carrying along clouds of dust.

It has long been assumed that the gases of a comet tail are pushed away from the comet by the pressure of light from the sun. It now appears that many tails are caused by a wind of charged ...

Those were long-exposure images, meaning the color and notable tail captured by the camera is deceptive to the naked eye. If spotted, the comet is expected to take on a circular cloud-like shape ...

As the comet gets close to the sun, it gets warmed up and its icy material transforms from solid to gas. This process creates long tails and an atmosphere around the nucleus, called the coma.

As the comet sped towards the Sun, the temperature increase evaporated large chunks of ice from its surface, feeding its outgassing tail and the hazy glow around its nucleus. But in early January ...

the tail was 400,000 miles (644,000 kilometers) wide, 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) long, and made of sodium atoms. David Levy remains more enamored of a 1986 comet Halley finding that ...

Like most comets, it has two tails that can be seen by the naked eye ... is about 373,000 miles wide and about 31 million miles long. Throughout history and across cultures, people have viewed ...

It has long been assumed that the gases of a comet tail are pushed away from the comet by the pressure of light from the sun. It now appears that many tails are caused by a wind of charged particles ...