Abstract
As a cometary nucleus, conceptualized as an agglomerate of grains of ice and dust, approaches the sun, the ices sublimate and drag off some fraction of the nuclear dust. While solar radiation pressure eventually drives these dust grains in the antisolar direction to form the dust tail, much of the newly-emitted dust is concentrated around the nucleus to form an optically significant shell (or “halo”). The fraction of the dust that is not entrained by the outflowing gas would accumulate on the surface to form a gradually thickening “mantle,” although under certain circumstances this could be “blown off” rather rapidly near perihelion.
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