What is a Comet? [1]

Comets are hardly ever seen by the unaided eye so whenever such a rare occurrence takes place, people viewing one up in the sky are often prompted to ask, “What is a comet?”

A comet is a small, irregularly- shaped, icy body that circles the Sun in long, elliptical orbits, which come very close to the Sun, and then go back deep into space, sometimes way past Pluto’s orbit. A comet is made up of a solid nucleus or core, enclosed in a cloudy atmosphere called coma. Together, the two compose a comet’s head, while one or two tails develop as the comet draws nearer to the Sun.