Please explain what the atmosphere of a comet is like and how it is formed?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,

A comet is made of frozen gases and dust. As the comet nears the sun, it melts a bit and gases and dust are released. The fuzzy glow around the nucleus of the comet is called the "coma" (which means "head"), and it consists of a mixture of gases and dust. The tail is mostly dust particles.

The theory on how it is formed is that either

1. dust particles (some as small as molecules) accreted together as they moved through space due to gravitational force; as the body grew, its increasing mass attracted more of them;

2. entire bodies may have been blown into space due to random collisions, after which they may have accreted more particles.

The 'tail' travels away from the nearest star: this is because cosmic rays literally blow the light (less massive) particles away, as these rays travel away (radiating in all directions) from their star.

Those were great answers and I appreciate it alot! Thanks guys for taking the time.

I think it's the "solar wind" -- particles emitted by the Sun (or any other star) -- rather than cosmic rays -- which come from all directions in space and whose origin isn't known -- that blow the particles coming off the comet away from the Sun (or other star), creating the comet's tail.

You're right, Anguilla. Dumb slip on my part.
Only solar energetic particles come from the sun.

Although several excellant answers have preceded me I would just like to point out that though the tail of the comet is many miles long (how else can we see it from at least 50 miles up with our naked eyes except from when they travel through our atmosphere {such as may have been the case and cause of a mass extinction 65 million years ago}) that the actual nucleus of the comet is very small, Haileys Comets' nucleus is only 8 miles in diameter.

Thanks so much for your time and excellent answeres guys!