A comet is different

from a star..... Comets are

like dirty snowballs and are

part of our Solar System.

Comets belong to our Solar System.

Orbiting the Sun are the planets and their

moons, asteroids and comets. The orbits

of comets are very elliptical. The Sun is

at one focus of the ellipse. When the

comet swings around near the Sun, the

energy and charged particles from the

Sun transform the comet.  The dirty

snowball comet becomes surrounded by

a glowing coma of vaporized ices which

become ionized gases and released

particles.  The solar wind pushes these

gases and dust particles into tails which

point away from the Sun.

Comets do not make their own light.

(Although the energy of the Sun causes

some of their gases to fluoresce.)  We see

comets because they reflect the Sun's

light. The moon, asteroids, planets, even

clouds in our sky are visible to us

because they are reflecting sunlight.

Stars are very hot and they make their

own light. Stars other than the Sun are

very, very far away. Though stars are

huge, they look like bright points of light

because of their great distance from

Earth.

Use the slice tool and Options for Axes

Setup to display the light profile of a star

as compared to a comet.