Discovery of 81P/Wild

Comet 81P/Wild, also called Wild 2, was discovered by the Swiss astronomer Paul Wild at the Zimmerwald observatory near Bern. It is a Jupiter-family comet which had been deflected into the inner solar system by a close approach to Jupiter a few years before its discovery, so its surface was relatively unchanged by the Sun's heat. This made it an ideal target for NASA's Stardust mission, which flew through its coma in 2004, collecting dust particles in a special gel and returning them to Earth in 2006. The samples contained a surprising range of minerals formed at high temperatures near the young Sun, as well as organic compounds, including the amino acid glycine.

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