Comet tail

Diagram of a comet showing the dust tail, gas tail, and the dust trail (or anti-tail)
The Great Comet of 2024 with tail (left) and anti-tail visible

A comet tail is a projection of material from a comet that often becomes visible when illuminated by the Sun, while the comet passes through the inner Solar System. As a comet approaches the Sun, solar radiation causes the volatile materials within the comet to vaporize and stream out of the comet nucleus, carrying dust away with them.

Blown by the solar wind, these materials typically form two separate tails that extend outwards from the comet's orbit: the dust tail, composed of comet dust, and the gas or ion tail, composed of ionized gases. They become visible through different mechanisms: the dust tail reflects sunlight directly, while the gas tail glows because of the ionization.

Larger dust particles are less affected by solar wind and tend to persist along the comet's trajectory, forming a dust trail which, when seen from Earth in certain conditions, appears as an anti-tail (or antitail) extending in the opposite directions to the main tail.

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