Last modified on 27 June 2003.


Encyclopædia Galactica

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Comet

A small body of ice and dust orbiting the Sun; size approximately one kilometre. A large number of comets orbit the Sun outside planetary orbits in the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt. Every year gravitational disturbances flung several tens of comets into inner Solar System, where warmth melts a tail for them. The tail is always blown away from the Sun because of solar wind.



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Created by Rami T. F. Rekola