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Physical Properties
2 km
Orbit
Sun
3.448 AU
0.538
3.24°
6.41 yr
Sources & Further Reading
- NASA — official mission / factsheet page
- Wikipedia — extensive cross-referenced article
- NASA Stardust Mission
Numerical values (radius, mass, orbital elements, temperatures) are drawn from NASA NSSDC Planetary Fact Sheets, JPL Horizons, and the JPL Small-Body Database. Last refreshed: 2026-04-18 18:19:27.
Comet 81P/Wild 2 was visited by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft on 2 January 2004. Stardust passed within 240 km of the nucleus and captured cometary dust particles in aerogel collectors. On 15 January 2006 the sample capsule parachuted into Utah, returning ~10,000 cometary particles to Earth — the first cometary sample ever brought back. Laboratory analysis of the Stardust samples identified the amino acid glycine, supporting theories that comets may have delivered prebiotic organic molecules to early Earth.