Number 36 (Story #5), May 31, 1991 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE MOON HAS A COMET-LIKE COMA AND TAIL . Michael Mendillo of Boston University, reporting at this week's meeting of American Geophysical Union in Baltimore, showed that the moon has a tail, consisting of sodium gas, extending at least 15,000 miles away from the lunar surface. The sodium, Mendillo believes, is released from lunar rocks by meteorite impacts and is later dissipated into space where it is formed into a tail by the force of solar radiation.