<Then somebody has to explain why the tail is immune from orbital mechanics. IE the material in the tail is being ejected into a higher orbit, some 93 million miles higher if this page of facts is to be believed. The circumference of the perihelion arc around the sun at 93 million miles further out is much bigger than the arc of the comet itself. For material at the outer end of the arc to cover this larger distance, it has to accelerate perpendicular to the solar wind. Or it has to be traveling outbound from the sun at speeds in excess of light speed by multiple factors. That defies the rules of causality and time as I understand it and thus can not be.

There are, physically, two tails. One is ejected debris, the other is ionized subatomic particles.

More than two tails may be seen, imaged, and reported, and for a time this will be true, but the additional tails will be short-lived. The two primary tails are the ion tail, which extends away from the sun and will only be as bright as the quantity of Solar ionizing and cometary ionized particles will allow, and the debris, or dust tail, which will follow the orbital path of the comet, becoming denser and outgassing increases, and more sparse as outgassing dissipates.

The source for both tails is the outgassing process caused by a comet’s proximity to the Sun. Outgassing is a violent, ongoing occurrence. The comet will continue to outgas throughout its inner transit of the Solar system, becoming more and more violent as it approaches closer and closer to the Sun. This is a repeating, and easily viewed event.

Due to the outgassing that occurs, the nucleus of the comet tumbles very awkwardly, very quickly, and very unpredictably -- to the point where it might not tumble at all (extremely slim chance of this). The process of the tumble, though, is what allows the outgassing to continue on all sides of the comet. This will cause unexpected events, such as sudden heavy outgassing in one or more directions, with debris ejection in that same direction(s), thereby creating one or more new tails.

This reinforces the possibility that the ion tail is a light pillar because the luminescence which appears to be at the tail of the comet is actually closer to the observer than the luminescence which appears to be at the head.

No, it doesn’t.

Dan