The gold and red tail features are dust , made predominately of little bits of rock and carbon. The dust tail shines by reflecting sunlight. Extending past the dust tail is the comet's ion tail , shown here glowing in blue. The ion tail is composed mostly of ions of water, carbon monoxide, and cyanogen . The ion tail glows by emitting light when elections re-combine with electrically charged ions to make uncharged molecules.
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