Simulated tail of corundum meta-particles viewed from above the orbital plane (left panel) and in the orbital plane (right panel) with meta-particles colour coded according to meta-particle radius. The axes of the left panel have the same scale, however the vertical axis of the right panel is stretched by a factor of ~1000 relative to the horizontal axis because the tail is much longer than it is high. These meta-particles have an initial radius of 1 μm and were ejected with a spherically symmetric distribution from a planet of mass 8.4 × 10⁻⁶ M_⊕ and radius of0.020 R_⊕ at a velocity of 3.0 times the planet’s surface escape velocity (or 674 m s⁻¹). The meta-particles were tracked as they sublimated until they were removed when they reached a radius of 1 nm. The sublimation rate of the meta-particles was set so that they reached a radius of 1 nm after one planetary orbit.