(๐ฎ๐น nel primo commento๐) ๐ฌ๐ง Let's go back to talk about the physics phenomenon of radiation pressure! (I'm referring to my second post๐) When a comet comes near a star it starts releasing gases in a process called outgassing. This produces a visible "coma" and sometimes a tail: the one we see in every single comet representation ๐ This coma feels a force exerted by the star's radiation pressure, that causes the formation of a tail oriented in a way that it always points away from the star. It may feel a little counterintuitive but the tail does not "follow" the path of the comet but stays radial to its orbit around the star! This is because the pressure of the star's radiation literally pushes the particles of the coma and tail away (#socialdistance at its finest guys, the tail can reach a length of 3.8 astronomical units!!). Here I chose to show you the beautiful C/2019 Y4 (or ATLAS Y4), a comet discovered on December 28 2019 that fragmented on April 9. Swiping left instead you can watch a little animation about the behaviour of the tail of a comet! - Credit:ATLAS, Wiki - #physics #astrophysics #solarsail #spacecraft #spacemission #esa #nasa #eso #solarsystem #earth #space #popularscience #popscience #popsci #science #comet #atlasy4 #atlas #comettail #radiationpressure #orbit #star #sun https://www.instagram.com/p/B-9NdB9pAIG/?igshid=utezxqisplpa
