# Comet

By [awpsmile](https://paragraph.com/@awpsmile) · 2023-07-21

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Comet refers to the brightness and shape of the solar system will change with the change of solar distance around the sun of the celestial body, the unique appearance of the cloud, is also the Chinese mythology and legend of the comet (star official name). Comets are divided into three parts: nucleus, coma and tail. The nucleus is made of icy material, which sublimates as the comet approaches the star, forming a hazy coma around the nucleus and a tail of thin material streams. Comets are very small in mass and density, and when they are away from the sun, they are just a "dirty snowball" of frozen ice, such as water, ammonia, methane, and many solid dust particles. When approaching the sun, the comet is broken up by solar radiation into the head and tail of a coma, resembling a broom.

Comets are celestial bodies that enter the solar system, whose brightness and shape change with the change of the solar distance, and have a unique appearance like clouds. Comets are divided into three parts: nucleus, coma and tail. The nucleus is made of icy material, which sublimates as the comet approaches the star, forming a hazy coma around the nucleus and a tail of thin material streams. Due to the pressure of the solar wind, comet tails always point away from the sun forming a long tail. Comet tail is generally tens of millions of kilometers long, up to hundreds of millions of kilometers. Comets are called comets because they are shaped like brooms. The orbits of comets are mostly parabolic or hyperbolic, and a few are elliptical. More than 1,700 comets have been discovered orbiting the Sun. Halley's famous comet takes 76 years to orbit the sun.

On February 21, 2014, a team from Kyoto Sangyo University in Japan discovered the presence of ammonia on comets. According to a new report: scientists recently tracked the "67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko" comet Rosetta spacecraft found some chemical residue belonging to the comet. Scientists used detectors to analyze the chemicals and found that the main components were ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde. This led scientists to conclude that the comet smells like rotten eggs, horse urine, alcohol and bitter almonds.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/3ed8455cf90c8688bb22f096c0c16f843f8eca6ec7d2d2818807499fbe754c54.png)

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*Originally published on [awpsmile](https://paragraph.com/@awpsmile/comet)*