Editing Making a Comet (section)

== Why This Works ==

''Comets'' are large rocky bodies in our solar system, and are easy to recognize because of the tail they create behind them. A term often used to describe comets is "dirty snowballs" because of what they are made of. Comets is made mostly of organic matter, represented by the dirt and rock mixture that we use, and will often also contain large amounts of iron in their core. Comets also contain trace amounts of complex molecules, represented with the soy sauce we added, and they often have ammonia frozen inside of them as well. Lastly, they have a lot of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice, on their surface as well.

We are able to find out what a comet is made of by looking at the coma of the comet. When we place our comet on the hot plate, we see the cloud of vapor coming off of the ball. This is similar to the cloud of gas and dust that we see trailing a comet as it flies close to the sun! By analyzing the tail of the comet we can find out what particles are being released, which gives us clues on what the comet is made of. A comet's tail is always pointed '''away''' from the sun, no matter what direction the comet is moving in. This is because the tail is created by the sun's ''solar wind'', which is made of high-energy particles that are flying out and away of the sun. the solar wind blasts off gas and dust from the surface of the comet, and this gas and dust are flung away from the sun, creating the tail!