nucleus
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major reference
- In comet: Cometary nuclei
Telescopic observations from Earth and spacecraft missions to comets have revealed much about their nuclei. Cometary nuclei are small solid bodies, typically only a few kilometres in diameter and composed of roughly equal parts of volatile ices, fine silicate dust, and
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features of comets
- In comet: General considerations
…of four visible parts: the nucleus, the coma, the ion tail, and the dust tail. The nucleus is a solid body typically a few kilometres in diameter and made up of a mixture of volatile ices (predominantly water ice) and silicate and organic dust particles. The coma is the freely…
Read More - In comet: The modern era
…and suggested that the cometary nucleus was a solid body made up of volatile ices and meteoritic material. That was called the “icy conglomerate” model but also became more popularly known as the “dirty snowball.”
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