SOLAR SYSTEM

Detailed explanation-1: -Comets are collections of rocky material and ices, sometimes referred to as “dirty snowballs”. One of their key features is their large abundance of so-called “volatile” compounds, things like carbon dioxide, water and noble gases that sublimate (change from solid to gas) very easily.

Detailed explanation-2: -Comets are sometimes called dirty snowballs or “icy mudballs". They are a mixture of ices (both water and frozen gases) and dust that for some reason didn’t get incorporated into planets when the solar system was formed. This makes them very interesting as samples of the early history of the solar system.

Detailed explanation-3: -Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock, and dust that orbit the Sun.

Detailed explanation-4: -Components of a Comet in the Vicinity of the Sun When far from the sun, the nucleus is very cold and its material is frozen solid. In this state comets are sometimes referred to as “dirty icebergs” or “dirty snowballs, ‘’ since over half of their material is ice.

Detailed explanation-5: -The nucleus is the solid, central part of a comet, once termed a dirty snowball or an icy dirtball. A cometary nucleus is composed of rock, dust, and frozen gases.

Detailed explanation-6: -A model of a comet’s nucleus, proposed by F. L. Whipple in 1949, and confirmed by the Giotto space probe to Halley’s Comet in 1986. According to this model, cometary nuclei consist of a relatively solid conglomerate of frozen ices and dust, rather than a loose ‘flying sandbank’ as suggested by an alternative model.