How does a meteor get its "tail"?

Question

i am doing a science project for school

and i was just wondering how the tail on a mereor is made

thank you

its just kinda confusing me =\

Answer 1

umm i think your talking about a comet...

anyway the "tail" actually is really bits of ice and rock

and if your are sure you are talking about a meteor then it is like this

when it enters the earth's atmosphere it burns up and bits of rock fall of and yeah it can get really hot just make sure it don't land on you:)

Answer 2

A meteoroid is a small sand to boulder sized particle of debris in the solar system.  The light we see of a meteoroid entering the atmosphere is called a meteor.  The object is a meteoroid and the light we see is the meteor.  Most meteoroids are small enough to burn up in the atmosphere before reaching the earth. The "tail" is caused by "ram pressure" and not friction.

Comets get their tails in a different way.

Answer 3

Are you confusing a meteor with a comet?  Or are you referring to the streak of light that appears behind a meteor when it enters the earth's atmosphere?  I'll provide both explanations, just in case.

Comet: Comets are made up of ice and rock.  They have an elliptical orbit (shaped like an oval, rather than circular), so most of the time they are extremely great distances from the sun, which is what accounts for the ice that holds the rest of the comet's "ingredients" (rock, dust, etc.) together.  When they are further away, the extremely cold temperatures keep their ice frozen, and they don't have the tail.  However, when they move in closer to the sun, solar winds begin to melt the comet's ice, blowing out a trail of steam and various debris (usually dust and chunks of rock) behind them.  This trail is what makes up the comet's "tail".  This tail becomes longer as it gets closer to the son, and shrinks as it moves away.  Earth is fairly close to the sun, compared to most other orbiting bodies in our solar system, so when a comet comes close enough for us to be able to observe it with the naked eye, its tail is always fairly long.

Meteor: When they enter our atmosphere, meteors begin to heat up.  Their temperature rises until they either incinerate (if it's a smaller meteor, usually a pebble or some dust) or turn into a sort of "fire ball", the surface of which is molten rock (much like magma).  If it incinerates, it appears to us as a streak of light across the sky, since its moving at such a high speed (kind of like how a flashlight appears to make a streak of light if it move it around quickly).  If it is large enough to make it either to the surface or low in the atmosphere, the 'tail' behind it is basically ignited dust, sparks and flames, like you'd see behind a hot coal if you were to throw it.  Plus, the meteor is surrounded by flames (again, created by the heat of entering the atmosphere), which are pushed out behind it by wind resistance.  If you take a lit candle and move it quickly (not so quickly that the flame goes out), you'll observe the flame being pushed in the opposite direction from the way you're moving it.

Answer 4

Comets are made of ice that sublimates and boils into steam when they come down to the inner solar system, and the pressure from sunlight pushes these gases into a tail pointed away from the sun. There is often a dust tail too, which is bent away from the gas tail because of electric charges on the dust that interacts with the solar magnetic field, which puts a kink into its motion.

Meteors, however, are rocks that enter Earth's atmosphere. They get their tails from wake ablation radiation. Hot stuff comes off in the air and glows for a fraction of a second.

Answer 5

You probably mean a comet.  Short answer: Solar wind from the sun, blowing particles away from the comet, which is why the tail is ahead of the comet when it's moving away from the sun.

If you're referring to a chunk of rock entering the earth's atmosphere, then any visible "tail" would be from the friction generated by the chunk of rock moving though earth's atmosphere.

But I think you really meant to say "comet" since no one talks about the tail of a meteor.