That prospect turned me into a serious shopper for trip cancellation and interruption insurance (one policy usually covers both), a product I had always dismissed as a rip-off. Like other value-oriented consumers, I had seen no need to add several hundred dollarsâ worth of vacation insurance to the price of a vacation. Until that trip. Since then we have insured a couple of other trips, but never needed to make a claim. The only time we came close was in the wake of 9/11.
Comet Facts. Comets, like asteroids, are small celestial bodies that orbit the Sun. However, unlike asteroids, comets are composed primarily of frozen ammonia, methane or water, and contain only small amounts of rocky material. As a result of this composition comets have been given the nickname of dirty snowballs..
Comets are basically dusty snowballs which orbit the Sun. They are made of ices, such as water, carbon dioxide, ammonia and methane, mixed with dust. These materials came from the time when the Solar System was formed. Comets have an icy center (nucleus) surrounded by a large cloud of gas and dust (called the coma). The coma is created as the ice in the nucleus is warmed by the Sun and vaporizes. Comets can develop two tails as they travel closer to the Sun: a straight gas tail and a curved dust tail. The gas tail is created by the solar wind, pushing gas away from the comet's coma and pointing straight back from the Sun. The dust in the coma is not affected by magnetic fields but is vaporized by the Sun's heat, and forms a curved tail which follows the comet's orbit.