Comet – celestial body with hairy tail
A comet travels around the sun and is sometimes described as a “dirty snowball.” The word “comet” comes from a Greek word that means “hairy one.”
A comet has no light of its own and shines from the sunlight bouncing off it.
Some scientists think that a large part of a comet is ice and the rest is bits of iron and dust. When the ice melts great clouds of gas go streaming behind it.
Earth passes through the orbit of some comets. Bits of dust left behind by the comets crash into the gases surrounding Earth. They burn up in the sky in what is called a meteor shower.
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