Comets

Part I of Essay
A comet is generally considered to consist of a small, sharp nucleus embedded in a nebulous disk called the coma. American astronomer Fred L. Whipple proposed in 1949 that the nucleus, containing practically all the mass of the comet, is a “dirty snowball” conglomerate of i ....

Part II of Essay
.... of a comet slightly away from its otherwise predictable path. In addition, short-period comets, observed over many revolutions, tend to fade very slowly with time, as would be expected of the kind of structure proposed by Whipple. Finally, the existence of comet groups shows that cometary nuclei are fairly solid units. The head of a comet, including the hazy coma, may exceed the planet Jupiter in size. The solid portion of most comets, however, is equivalent to only a few cubic kilometers. The dust-blackened nucleus of Halley's comet, for exam ....