SOLAR SYSTEM

Detailed explanation-1: -Scientists sometimes call comets dirty snowballs or snowy dirtballs, depending on whether they contain more ice material or rocky debris according to NASA.

Detailed explanation-2: -Comets are several miles in diameter, composed of rock, ice and other organic compounds, making them “dirty snowballs” in space, according to NASA’s near earth object program. They originate outside the orbit of the outermost planets and form elliptical orbits that pass close to the sun.

Detailed explanation-3: -Comets, like asteroids, are small celestial bodies that orbit the Sun. However, unlike asteroids, comets are composed primarily of frozen ammonia, methane or water, and contain only small amounts of rocky material. As a result of this composition comets have been given the nickname of “dirty snowballs."

Detailed explanation-4: -They range from a few miles to tens of miles wide, but as they orbit closer to the Sun, they heat up and spew gases and dust into a glowing head that can be larger than a planet. This material forms a tail that stretches millions of miles. Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust that orbit the Sun.

Detailed explanation-5: -Comets are like “dirty snowballs” that have orbited the Sun since our Solar System formed, billions of years ago.

Detailed explanation-6: -Comets are icier than asteroids because they formed in the deep freeze of the outer solar system. They’re composed of rock and ice, earning them the nickname dirty snowballs.

Detailed explanation-7: -In the 1990s astronomers recognized that Pluto, which has a diameter of about 2, 300 km (1, 400 miles), is a giant icy leftover from the time when the planets formed.