We are used to comets having long tails but recent investigations show us that comets give off fine jets, but why?

The Old Picture of Comets

We tend to think of comets as snowballs in the sky with long tails.

Buddy_Nath / Pixabay

Ancient people used to think that they were signifiers of doom.

But it’s only in recent years that we have been able to study them in more detail because the European Space Agency has sent probes to various comets.

New Surprises

And what they found was a big surprise.
Instead of just one long tail as the comet nears the sun, comets actually give off jets of vapour and dust including water vapour.

ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

These can also be accompanied by an increase in brightness.

The video above contains another image of a comet with jets spinning through space.

Too much power

At first, people thought that these plumes must be caused by the sun which heats up ice and gases beneath the surface.

But these plumes erupt with so much power that there must be another energy source involved.

Black holes and comets

Of course from the perspective of The Black Hole Principle, we would expect comets to give off jets intermittently including water vapour.

That’s because the same process is happening at different scales from a galactic black hole to even a comet.

Just as black holes give off intermittent jets, so do comets.

I hope you have enjoyed this episode of Punk Science TV.

Please leave a comment below with your thoughts about comets, jets and black holes.