A comet tail is formed by dust and ions blown off the speeding rock by solar wind. The dust trailing the rock reflects sunlight while gaseous components become ionised to give a faint glow ...

Comet A3 hasn't been past Earth since the Neanderthals. Your last chance to see it is approaching fast. Here's where and how ...

a bright dust tail, which is created by the reflection of sunlight on the dust streaming from the comet, and a fainter ion tail, which is composed of electrically charged atoms swept from the ...

The boiling is so intense, that the world has developed a comet-like tail stretching 350,000 miles behind it, scientists announced on Tuesday. Don't retire on this planet The planet, called WASP ...

If spotted, the comet is expected to take on a circular cloud-like shape with a brighter center and a faint dust tail — in comparison to other comets, which tend to be brighter and more elongated.

Pushed back by the pressure of the sun's radiation, the dust streams out behind the comet in what appears as a fiery tail. Now the comet is among the fastest things in the solar system.

This story appears in the July 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine. The dust speck had been plucked from the tail of a comet more than 200 million miles away. Now, under an electron ...

Following perihelion, the comet ... dust particles that are lit by reflected sunlight makes up the upper stream of tails. The lower stream is composed of gases that glow from ionization. This tail ...

When a comet's orbit brings it close to the Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing head larger than most planets. “The dust and gases form a tail that stretches away from ...