A good rule of them to determine from where a comet comes, is to look at where the comet is in the sky. Since the Kuiper Belt is generally aligned with the ecliptic (and the solar equator), those comets will appear within the zodiac constellations*.
*Please do not confuse the zodiac constellations with the astrological zodiac (which is total bs, by the way). The zodiac constellations will be a topic for a future post.
Oort Cloud comets, however, can appear anywhere in the sky since the Oort Cloud encompasses the entire Solar System. So if you see a comet near the north celestial pole, you can be sure that that comet come from the Oort Cloud, and likely may not come back again.
Anatomy of a Comet
What is unique about a comet's tails, is that they always point away from the Sun. In the above picture, the bottom portion of the path shows the comet leaving the solar neighborhood, and the tails are leading the comet, rather than following.
Comets are also believed that have brought water to the Earth. Water is considered a volatile element, which means it has a low boiling point and wouldn't be found in large quantities in the solar nebula when the Solar System first formed. Water may not have been the only thing comets brought to Earth: they may have brought complex organic molecules which could have helped lead to life on Earth. This is only speculation, however. No hard proof has ever been found.
Comets also can lead to meteor showers. As a comet travels around the Sun, it loses parts of its nucleus which stay in orbit around the Sun. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the Earth may go through the particles left and those particles may fall to the Earth and we see them as meteors.
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