Thanks for sending that picture, but the one I am talking about I can't find, it was at a JPL laboratory, I think it was the Glenn, and the entire site is locked up now because of 911

The picture was a fluke and was caused by some camera malfunction which led to using one camera for alignment with the stars because the other had failed, but it clearly showed the Ion trail. I thought it kind of looked like a normal F18 exhaust except there were no sonic rings.

Somebody else mentioned that man made xenon gas Ions may not react the same as ones from the comet, of course he/she is right. I certainly don't know what causes the tails, but as I have said before, there are alternatives that should be explored, mine is one that I would like to see proven or disproven. I know what sublimated water vapor does in -30 degrees and in an atmosphere. I can speculate on what it should do in a near perfect vacuume and at 10 degrees kelvin but I certainly haven't experienced it.

I can tell you that all the theories, including mine have flaws. I know for a fact that the tails on the comet look amazingly like the Ice Fog aparitions we see here in Alaska only infrequently. I know for a fact that all of the theories speculate that the comet is generating sublimated water vapor which simply must turn to a solid at some point in the comets travels. There should be similarities in the optical characteristics of those ice crystals.

I know that the cold Ice Fog also discharges static electricity and have personally been struck by lightning while flying my Cessna in it, and also once while onboard an Alaska Airlines MD80 class airliner.

It is feasable and logical to me that the comet falling toward the sun at the rate of speed it is moving could come into a tremendous charge due to friction with the few molecules of what ever are floating around in space. I can understand the comet giving off a trail of Ions if it is in fact surrounded by the same material whether Ice Crystals or what ever they are, but the nucleus of the comet would therefore have to be charged positively while the coma would have to be neutral, and the Ion trail charged negatively. But the nucleus would have to be to one side of the coma or the other, it could not be in the center of the coma. Else you would have a neutral charge throughout. Kind of like anode placement in an electrolosis bath. Put the anode in the center and it won't conduct. To the left or right and it works OK.

This would also follow that the entire other side of the coma from the nucleus would be giving off the Ion trail. Is is possible that the Ion tail is only visible if it is in shadow of the Coma? Kind of an ambient light kind of thing. If the Coma is as big as the Earth, or Bigger, the back side of it, away from the sun, would have to be darker, if not totally black from lack of sunlignt.

By the way, at 50 years old, I have heard and even re-itterated the majority of the statements you have made to me thus far. I am looking for both support and for faults with my postulations. I do appreciate your criticism but I would rather you found faults with my utterings, not just re-itterations of other theories. But if re-itterations are all you have, that is OK too.

Dan