Do all comets have tails? Explain how comets form their tails

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Comets only have tails when they are close to the Sun. When they are far from the Sun, comets are extremely dark, cold, icy objects. The icy body is called the nucleus, made of various types of ices, dirt and dust. As comets get closer to the Sun in their journeys through the Solar System, they start to warm up.

As they reach an area roughly the same distance from the sun as Jupiter, the ices start to heat up and vaporize, releasing the gases and embedded dust particles that form a coma around the comet. As comets continue traveling closer to the Sun, the dust particles and other bits of debris in the coma are blown away from the sun due to the pressure of sunlight. This process forms a dust tail.

Once comets start moving away from the Sun, their activity decreases. Their tails fade and the coma disappears. They return to just the icy nucleus again. When comets' orbits eventually bring them back towards the Sun, the coma and tails begin to form again.