The Giotto Mission to Comet Halley Europe has a long tradition of cometary exploration: Giotto, the first mission to capture images of cometary nucleus was launched by ESA in 1985 and flew through the coma of Comet Halley in March 1986. Its name was a tribute to the first realistic painting of a comet, actually a fresco by the artist Giotto di Bondone made in 1301, and still visible on the wall of a chapel in Padova (Italy). The Giotto spacecraft confirmed the existence of an irregular and dark cometary nucleus and took unique images while it approached this object. On-board instruments discovered fluffy solid particles with organic compounds in the cometary coma. These observations signified a break-through in cometary science. Other spacecraft that visited Comet Halley in 1986 included the Vega1 & VEGA2 missions (USSR) and Sakigake & Susei from Japan. Giotto flew on to encounter Comet Grigg-Skjellerup in July 1992, and approached its nucleus from an altitude of about 150 km.   Life in the Universe   Exploring the Solar System     Missions to Comets       The Giotto Mission to Comet Halley       The Rosetta Mission to Comet Wirtanen       Other Missions (Section to be added soon)