81P/Wild
Comet 81P/Wild, also known as Wild 2 (pronounced "vilt two") ( ), is a comet with a period of 6.4 years named after Swiss astronomer Paul Wild, who discovered it on January 6, 1978, using a 40-cm Schmidt telescope at Zimmerwald, Switzerland.
Key facts
- Comet.name
- 81P/Wild
- Comet.image
- Wild2 3.jpg
- Comet.caption
- The nucleus of Comet Wild 2 as seen by the Stardust mission in January 2004
- Comet.discoverer
- Paul Wild
- Comet.discovery_site
- Zimmerwald, Switzerland
- Comet.discovery_date
- 6 January 1978
- Comet.mpc_name
- P/1978 A2; P/1983 S1
- Comet.designations
- 1978 XI; 1984 XIV;1990 XXVIII
- Comet.epoch
- 17 October 2024 (JD 2460600.5)
- Comet.observation_arc
- 46.67 years
- Comet.obs
- 7,963
- Comet.perihelion
- 1.597 AU
~6 min read
Article
8 sectionsContents
- Orbit
- Exploration
- Gallery
- See also
- References
- Notes
- Citations
- External links
Comet 81P/Wild, also known as Wild 2 (pronounced "vilt two") ( ), is a comet with a period of 6.4 years named after Swiss astronomer Paul Wild, who discovered it on January 6, 1978, using a 40-cm Schmidt telescope at Zimmerwald, Switzerland.
For most of its 4.5 billion-year lifetime, Wild 2 probably had a more distant and circular orbit. In September 1974, it passed within 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 .