Comet Wild Two

Here is Comet 81P/Wild, also known as Wild 2, which is pronounced "vilt two". The comet is the second named after Swiss astronomer Paul Wild, who discovered the body January 6, 1978, using a 40-cm Schmidt telescope at Zimmerwald Observatory.

Astronomers think that Wild 2 has been around for 4.5 billions years. But in September 1974, it passed within one million kilometers from the planet Jupiter, which altered the comet's trajectory and brought it into the inner Solar System. Wild 2 now has an orbital period of 6 years and has a perihelion of about 1.59 AU (astronomical units). On January 2, 2004, NASA's Stardust Mission passed the body and collected particles from the comet's coma, which were returned to Earth, along with interstellar dust which the spacecraft collected, on January 15, 2006.

This image is a charcoal rendering of the comet, based one one of the images taken by the Stardust spacecraft during it fly-by.

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