Part 9/14:
Many imagine comet tails as streaming behind them, pointing away from their direction of travel. But this isn’t accurate.
A comet’s tail always points away from the Sun, regardless of whether it is approaching or retreating. When a comet moves away from the Sun after perihelion, its tail seemingly leads the way, creating an illusion of backward motion.
The dust tail, made of heavier particles, is curved and follows a path influenced by the comet's orbit, while the ion tail, composed of ionized gases blown out by the solar wind, always points directly away from the Sun, pushed by the solar wind’s charged particles.