SOLAR SYSTEM

Detailed explanation-1: -Comets go around the Sun in a highly elliptical orbit. They can spend hundreds and thousands of years out in the depths of the solar system before they return to Sun at their perihelion. Like all orbiting bodies, comets follow Kepler’s Laws-the closer they are to the Sun, the faster they move.

Detailed explanation-2: -Short-period comets take less than 200 years, and long-period comets take over 200 years, with some taking 100, 000 to 1 million years to orbit the Sun. The short-period comets are found near the ecliptic, which means they are orbiting the Sun in same plane as the planets.

Detailed explanation-3: -Comets are thought to orbit the sun in either the Oort cloud or Kuiper belt. When another star passes by the solar system, its gravity pushes the Oort cloud and/or Kuiper belt and causes comets to descend toward the sun in a highly elliptical orbit with the sun at one focus of the ellipse.

Detailed explanation-4: -Scientists believe that comets are made up of material left over from when the Sun and the planets were formed. They think that about 100, 000 million comets orbit the Sun. Some comets orbit the Sun like planets. Their orbits take them very close to and very far away from the Sun.

Detailed explanation-5: -Comet tails are expansions of the coma. Comet tails point away from the Sun, regardless of the direction in which the comet is traveling. Comets have two tails because escaping gas and dust are influenced by the Sun in slightly different ways, and the tails point in slightly different directions.