Giotto

Giotto, European space probe that came within 596 km (370 miles) of the nucleus of Halley’s Comet on March 13, 1986.

Giotto was named after the 14th-century Italian painter Giotto di Bondone, whose 1305–06 fresco The Adoration of the Magi includes a realistic depiction of a comet as the Star of Bethlehem in the Nativity scene; this image is believed to have been inspired by the artist’s observation of the passage of Halley’s Comet in 1301.

Giotto was the first solar system exploration mission carried out by the European Space Agency. Its objective was to image and analyze the nucleus of Halley’s Comet and to study other characteristics of the comet during its next periodic swing through the inner solar system in 1986. The spacecraft was launched by an Ariane 1 rocket on July 2, 1985. Data from the Soviet Vega spacecraft, which also investigated Halley’s Comet, enabled Giotto’s controllers to home in on the comet’s nucleus. In its approach to the nucleus, Giotto returned a wealth of scientifically valuable data, including vivid images. It determined that the comet was 80 percent water, with a dust-covered, uneven surface darker than coal, and that the comet was composed of primitive material dating from the formation of the solar system.

Fourteen seconds before closest approach, Giotto was hit by a large particle ejected from the comet nucleus; this caused loss of data from the spacecraft and damaged some of its instruments, but others survived with little or no damage. The surviving instruments allowed Giotto, after "hibernating" for more than six years, to carry out a July 10, 1992, close encounter with the nucleus of Comet Grigg-Skjellerup. Giotto, no longer returning data, remains in orbit around the Sun.