Hassell, E. (2020, July 16). Comet NEOWISE over Queen Valley. flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/115357548@N08/50120466697
Short Definition: A Comet is a small object orbiting the star
(e.g. the Sun) composed of dust, rock and ices. Comets appear in our solar
system and have mostly origin in Kuiper belt or Oort Cloud.
Detailed Definition: Comets show up periodically, orbiting a star
on the ecliptic orbit with different span from several to thousands of years. The
comet appearance changes depending on the distance from the source of heat. If the comet is far away from the star, it only consists of the nucleus. After
approaching the source of a heat, the surface of the icy heart of the comet starts heating
up and slowly transforms into gas, creating a coma (fuzzy cloud of gas and dust)
around the nucleus. When the coma appears, two tails spread behind the nucleus. Due to the ion tail's electric charge, it always points away from the star. The dust tail
indicates the path of the nucleus, which is wide, curved and spread behind the
nucleus for millions of miles. The most popular comet is Halley's Comet
(1P/Halley) which is visible from Earth every 75–79 years.
Etymology: comet – Greek - koman (κομᾶν) - to wear the hair
long
Sample Sentence(s): There are likely billions of comets orbiting our Sun in the Kuiper Belt
and even more distant Oort Cloud.
Translations:
French: La comète
German: der Komet
Polish: kometa
Swedish: Komet
Spanish El cometa
Links to Videos/Articles: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/overview/ https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/comets/en/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Encke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet
