Discovery of 26P/Grigg–Skjellerup

26P/Grigg-Skjellerup is a periodic comet found by the amateur astronomer John Grigg of Thames, New Zealand, who spotted it from his home. It was lost after a few returns and then rediscovered in the 1920s by Frank Skjellerup, an Australian astronomer working in South Africa, and both names were given to the comet. It takes about five years to orbit the Sun. In 1992 the European space probe Giotto, which had already flown past Halley's Comet in 1986, was sent to fly by it as part of an extended mission, passing at close range and returning data about the comet's gas and dust, making it a rare case of a probe visiting two comets.

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