Not one Comet in the entire Milky Way Galaxy.....

[Zieman]

Sorry, but where does the tail go, when the comet leaves proximity of the sun?

In principle, it just dissipates.

 

[Helvellyn]

In principle, it just dissipates.

Meteor showers are caused by the Earth passing through a comet's orbit (or vice-versa, depending upon which way you look at it) and hitting material that's come from the comet. The Eta Aquariids shower (every May) is associated with Halley's Comet for example.

 

[aRJay]

Sorry, but where does the tail go, when the comet leaves proximity of the sun?

The tail of the comet is produced from the ice and other particles released by the comet due to outgassing caused by the energy received from the sun, when the comet gets far enough away there isn’t enough energy and the outgassing stops and the tail fades away.
You could think of the tail as the plume from a kettle of boiling water which vanishes when you take the heat away from the kettle.

 

[metatheurgist]

The tail of the comet is produced from the ice and other particles released by the comet due to outgassing caused by the energy received from the sun, when the comet gets far enough away there isn’t enough energy and the outgassing stops and the tail fades away.
You could think of the tail as the plume from a kettle of boiling water which vanishes when you take the heat away from the kettle.

I could think that or I could just call it sorcery.

 

[Ydiss]

They move too fast for you to keep up with anyway. Halley's, for example, is 900 ish to 55K ish M/s.

Catching up to one isn't an issue in super cruise and then you're in its frame of reference, just like dropping out at a station that's orbiting a planet that's orbiting another body. All moving very fast.

Not that I really care about whether they're in or not but I can't say this is a reason they're not, for balance.

Sort of a waste of effort to add something that might be unreachable for decades at a time though.

 

[nafnist]

The tail of the comet is produced from the ice and other particles released by the comet due to outgassing caused by the energy received from the sun, when the comet gets far enough away there isn’t enough energy and the outgassing stops and the tail fades away.
You could think of the tail as the plume from a kettle of boiling water which vanishes when you take the heat away from the kettle.

I'll argue the tail is still there, only not being energised enough by photon pressure to be observed from earth.

 

[Bravo17]

I'll argue the tail is still there, only not being energised enough by photon pressure to be observed from earth.

The comet isn't receiving enough energy from the Sun to boil off enough matter to make a tail, so it isn't there. Just like when the kettle cools down the plume of steam isn't there.

 

[Para Handy]

..... to boil off enough matter to make a tail, .......

Actually boiling doesn't occur, the solids sublimate into their gaseous phase.

 

[nafnist]

The actual matter in the tail, especially the one comprised of dust, doesn't just disappear.
Right?

 

[Susanna]

Not one.

It would be nice to catch up with Haley's Comet, fly through it's tail, or see one in other systems.

But Alas, not one Comet to be found.

Just saying.

... Radiation. Even NMS has radiation!

 

[Helvellyn]

The actual matter in the tail, especially the one comprised of dust, doesn't just disappear.
Right?

Material in the tail dissipates - it spreads itself out too thin to be seen. It's still out there as is demonstrated when we get meteor showers. When a comet is close to the sun that tail material is constantly being added to by material from the body of the comet.

 

[3navis]

is not a comet but...

 

[Gunther_Bladderburst]

Well to be fair I think it is not as simple as people might think. Do you model the tails, do you make the tails respond to position in the cometary orbit for example? I mean it would be naff to have a comet with a tail pointing AT the sun or just as big at aphelion as at perihelion etc. So it makes the computation a lot more than just positional data.

Orienting a mesh toward another one is a really simple matter. As for visibility of the tail, this too is a really simple matter (Distance controlling opacity and scale.).

So as far as comets in super cruise goes it is very simple to do. What do you do with players droping out near those is another matter though. But since there are already ice rings it wouldn’t be that hard to do I think.