FAQs

Some of the Frequently Asked Questions are listed here:

  1. Do comets turn into asteroids?
    Comets orbit the Sun, like asteroids. But comets are made of ice and dust—not rock. As a comet's orbit takes it toward the Sun, the ice and dust begin to vaporize. That vaporized ice and dust become the comet's tail.
  2. How are comets formed?
    Comets are made up of dust, ice, carbon-dioxide, ammonia, methane etc. The building block of comet is dust particles coated with water ice and other molecules. These dust particles combine to form icy rocks that join together under the force of gravity.
  3. Why do comets travel so fast?
    (This is the same reason Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun.) We already know that the comets are so light that the planets yank their orbits around, sending them just about every direction in the solar system.
  4. What are the three main parts of a comet?
    Comets have three distinct parts: a nucleus, a coma, and a tail. The solid core is called the nucleus, which develops a coma with one or more tails when a comet sweeps close to the Sun. The coma is the dusty, fuzzy cloud around the nucleus of a comet, and the tail extends from the comet and points away from the Sun.
  5. What are the types of comets?
    Comets are sorted into four categories: periodic comets (e.g. Halley's Comet), non-periodic comets (e.g. Comet Hale–Bopp), comets with no meaningful orbit (the Great Comet of 1106), and lost comets (5D/Brorsen), displayed as either P (periodic), C (non-periodic), X (no orbit), and D (lost).
  6. Where do comets come from?
    Comets spend most of their lives far away from the Sun in the distant reaches of the solar system. They primarily originate from two regions: the Kuiper Belt, and the Oort Cloud.
  7. How does a comet eventually die?
    COMETS vaporize when their orbits take them close to the Sun. Comets do not melt in the strict sense of becoming liquid.After many orbits near the Sun, a comet does eventually "expire." In some cases, all the volatile ices boil away, leaving a remnant of rock and dust.
  8. How long does a comet live?
    They are often kept with koi in outdoor ponds. Comets have a natural life span of 5 to 14 years and may live even longer in optimal conditions.
  9. Does comet lose weight?
    Comets lose mass with each passage through the inner solar system . Since comets are moving very quickly through the inner solar system, they only spend a few months in the part of the solar system where they are warm enough to sustain a substantial rate of mass losss.
  10. Do comets give out light?
    A comet does not give off any light of its own. What seems to be light from the comet is actually a reflection of our Sun's light. Sunlight bounces off the comet's ice particles in the same way light is reflected by a mirror.