Do comets tails point to or away from the sun?

Answer 1

Comets tails point away from the sun.

Comets are found in two main regions of the solar system: the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. There are two types of comets: short-period comets and long-period comets.Comets are celestial objects that streak across the heavens with long tails of shimmering light that can be seen at night and at times during the day. The comas and tails of comets are made mostly of gases which are fragmentary molecules. The tail is formed when the sun's radiation vaporizes some of the material on the coma. The material that spurts from the coma forms the tail. Some of the gases that make up the coma and tail are: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Although they are only gases, the coma can be larger than the planet Jupiter and the tail, millions of miles long.

The solar wind (charged particles blow off of the sun's surface by its magnetic field) actually "blows" against the comet; as the comet gets closer to the sun and its surface starts to evapourate (comets are basically dirty icecubes), the solar wind pushes these evapourated particles away from the sun.

To elaborate further:
A comet is made up of many tiny dust particles covered with ice that stuck together when the Solar System was forming. The comets reside in either the Kuiper Belt, just outside the orbit of Neptune, or the Oort Cloud, which is a spherical distribution of comets as far as 100,000 AU away (an AU is an Astronomical Unit which is equal to the distance between the Earth and the Sun). At these distances, it is very cold and comets do not release any gases. As a comet approaches the Sun, the ices warm until they reach the temperature at which they evaporate (Note: the ices do not melt
because the pressure is too low. They go directly from the solid ice to a gas). When this happens, not only the gas, but the dust is also removed from the comet because the particles are only loosely held together.

This is where the Sun comes in. The Sun has what is known as the solar wind -- a low density stream of charged particles, mostly protons and electrons, that travel outward at 450 km/s (or about 2,600,000 miles per hour). These particles hit the gas and dust released by a comet and push them outward. Gas molecules are very light so the solar wind pushes them
straight away from the Sun to form the ion tail. The dust particles are massive compared to the gas but the solar wind also pushes them away to form the dust tail, which is curved but still points away from the Sun. Even when the comet is moving away from the Sun, the solar wind is still pushing the dust outward so the tail is still pointing away from the Sun.

An analogy to explain:
If you stand in a wind tunnel facing into the wind, your hair
( imagine you have long hair) will be blown behind you.
As you walk toward the fan, your hair will continue to be blown behind you. If you turn around, your hair is now blowing in front of you, but still away from the fan. Even if you walk away, your hair will be blowing in front of you because the force of the wind is strong enough to push your hair forward. Your hair does not change direction even though you do. The
solar wind plays the same role in space as the wind in the tunnel and hair represents the comet tail.

There are two types of comet tails: dust and gas ion. A dust tail contains small, solid particles that are about the same size found in cigarette smoke. This tail forms because sunlight pushes on these small particles, gently shoving them away from the comet’s nucleus. Because the pressure from sunlight is relatively weak, the dust particles end up forming a diffuse, curved tail. A gas ion tail forms when ultraviolet sunlight rips one or more electrons from gas atoms in the coma, making them into ions (a process called ionization). The solar wind then carries these ions straight outward away from the Sun. The resulting tail is straighter and narrower. Both types of tails may extend millions of kilometers into space. As a comet heads away from the Sun, its tail dissipates, its coma disappears, and the matter contained in its nucleus freezes into a rock-like material.

Answer 2

Away.

The tail made of dust is left behind in the comet's orbit in such a manner that it often forms a curved tail. At the same time, the ion tail, made of gases, always pointing directly away from the Sun, as this gas is more strongly affected by the solar wind than dust is, following magnetic field lines rather than an orbital trajectory. While the solid body of comets (called the nucleus) is generally less than 50 km across, the coma may be larger than the Sun, and the ion tails have been observed to extend 150 million km (1 Astronomical unit) or more.

The neutral gas species in cometary comae can be ionised by solar UV photons, as in . The ions are susceptible to a magnetic force due to the solar magnetic field carried by the solar wind. Consequently, the ions are swept out of the coma into a long, distinctive ion tail. Because the most common ion, CO+, scatters blue light better than red, the ion tail often appears to the human eye as blue. Also, the magnetic force is very strong and produces ropes, knots and streamers that distinguish the ion tail from the dust tail. The solar wind sweeps past the comet at about 500 km/s, causing the ion tail to be swept almost exactly in the anti-solar direction.

A 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.

The most famous comet of all, Halley's Comet, was the first one recognised to reappear in the sky at regular intervals. Sir Edmond Halley studied records of past appearances and suggested that one comet followed a similar track through the sky roughly every 76 years, appearing in 1531, 1607, and 1682. He then predicted that it should pass by again in 1759. Though Halley did not live to see the reappearance, the successful prediction proved these bodies orbited the Sun, and were not atmospheric phenomena.

Answer 3

A comet's tail points away from the sun. The "tail" is formed by the comet melting and burning up from the energy of the sun. The "solar wind" is causing that material to be blown away, therefore the tail points away from the sun.

Answer 4

It points away but when it passes the sun and moves away from the sun it appears to be moving toward the sun because of the solar wind. So, the comet can actually be chasing it's tail, looking is if it is approaching the sun as it leaves the area of it's closest position near the sun. Kinda defies what passes for logic.

Answer 5

Tail Of The Sun

Answer 6

A comet's tail will always point away from the sun.

Answer 7

Yes,they point away from the sun!

Answer 8

It away, because when you think about it the light is going away from the sun!

Answer 9

Just like the first two answerers, it always points away.

Answer 10

away