NAIF ID 1000107

Comet 81P Wild 2, is a periodic comet named after Swiss astronomer Paul Wild, who discovered it on January 6, 1978, using a 40-cm Schmidt telescope at Zimmerwald, Switzerland,  In September 1974, it passed within one million kilometers of the planet Jupiter, the strong gravitational pull of which perturbed the comet's orbit and brought it into the inner Solar System.  Its orbital period changed from 43 years to about 6 years, and its perihelion is now about 1.59 astronomical unit (AU).  It has dimensions 1.65 x 2 x 2.75 km, and an orbit semi-major axis distance of 3.45 AU with an eccentricity of 0.5384.  In 2004 the Stardust spacecraft flew by comet Wild 2 at a distance of 236 km in order to gather dust particles from near the nucleus — the first such gathering of extraterrestrial materials from beyond the orbit of the moon.

Manually created by RChen to complete mission Stardust

81P/Wild 2

The Stardust is a spacecraft that was the first sample return mission. It collected dust from the coma of the comet. It was launched on February 7, 1999. It got an extended mission to Tempel 1.

81P/Wild 2 Information Page

Mission Data

Observational data produced from a Mission or Investigation

Stardust