Definition of "comet" []

• A celestial body, observed only in that part of its orbit that is relatively close to the sun, having a head consisting of a solid nucleus surrounded by a nebulous coma up to 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) in diameter and an elongated curved vapor tail arising from the coma when sufficiently close to the sun. Comets are thought to consist chiefly of ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, and water. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "With a little imagination, they might look like the heads of mourning women with long, streaming hair -- and in fact, the word comet comes from the Greek word for "hair.""
• "A comet is a relatively small extraterrestrialbody witha nucleus of rock, ice, dust and gases."
• "No matter how many times you rewind the clock, the comet is still going to hit."