81P/Wild

81P/Wild
	Comet Wild 2 (81P/Wild) nucleus in 2004
Discovery
Discovered by	Paul Wild
Discovery date	1978
Designations
Alternative designations	1978 XI; 1984 XIV;; 1990 XXVIII
Orbital characteristics
Epoch	March 6, 2006
Aphelion	5.308 AU
Perihelion	1.592 AU
Semi-major axis	3.45 AU
Eccentricity	0.5384
Orbital period	6.408 a
Inclination	3.2394°
Last perihelion	December 15, 2022; July 20, 2016; February 22, 2010
Next perihelion	May 14, 2029
Jupiter MOID	0.012 AU (1,800,000 km)

Comet 81P/Wild, also known as Wild 2 (pronounced "vilt two") (/ˈvɪlt/ VILT), is a comet named after Swiss astronomer Paul Wild, who discovered it on January 6, 1978, using a 40-cm Schmidt telescope at Zimmerwald, Switzerland.^[6]

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 one million kilometers of the planet Jupiter, the strong gravitational pull of which perturbed the comet's orbit and brought it into the inner Solar System.^[7] Its orbital period changed from 43 years to about 6 years,^[7] and its perihelion is now about 1.59 astronomical units (AU).^[1]

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