The original post: /r/askscience by /u/luckyrunner on 2024-10-04 05:06:28.

I know that usually particles will be stripped from a comet approaching a star and the tail will be pushed away from the star by the stellar wind. But I also remember learning somewhere that when a comet gets especially close to a star, gasses and liquids will be heated and expelled specifically from the side of the comet facing the star in great enough volumes that they will overcome the pressure of the solar wind, resulting in a tail that faces towards the star instead. Is this latter theory possible?