Learn about comets, what they’re made of, and how they move from the university that has discovered 52% of all known near-Earth objects, including comets.

1. what’s a comet?

2. what’s a comet?
A comet is frozen
water and gases
mixed with dust.

3. what’s a comet?
A comet is frozen
water and gases
mixed with dust.
Basically, an icy, muddy
snowball flying through
space.

4. what’s a comet?
A comet loses
shape and mass as
it orbits the sun
and heats up.

5. what’s a comet? life stages
of a comet
A comet loses
shape and mass as
it orbits the sun
and heats up.

6. what’s a comet?
life stages of a comet moving slowly
and frozen
to moving quickly
and sending off debris

7. Like anything else that
orbits in space, the closer
comets are to the Sun the
faster they move.
comets in orbit

8. comets in orbit
You can’t see comets
until they’re passing
close to the Sun.

9. comets in orbit
As a comet moves
towards the Sun,
you begin to see
its anatomy.

10. comet anatomy
Ice in the core
turns to gas and
forms a cloud,
called a “coma.”

11. Radiation from
the sun pushes
dust away from
the coma.
comet anatomy

12. This looks like a
“dust tail.”
comet anatomy

13. Charged particles
from the sun convert
some of the comet’s gases
into ions, forming an “ion tail.”
comet anatomy

14. why study comets?
Comets played a major role
in the evolution of the Earth,
starting billions of years ago.

15. By studying comets,
comprised of material
from extremely cold regions
of our own solar system,

16. scientists believe they
offer clues
to the forming of the
solar system.
comprised of material
from extremely cold regions
of our own solar system,
By studying comets,

17. Comets
may have also brought
to Earth the water
& organic molecules
that allowed
life to form.

18. The University of Arizona
where more than 52%
of all near-Earth
objects including
comets were discovered
Learn more about these
discoveries at UA Research
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