- Source: D/1895 Q1 (Swift)
D/1895 Q1 (Swift) is one of 13 comets discovered by American astronomer, Lewis A. Swift. A Jupiter-family comet, it was last seen in February 1896 and was not observed since.
Possible encounter with Mariner 4
On September 15, 1967, the Mariner 4 spacecraft encountered a dense "meteor storm" that is more intense than anything seen from Earth for 45 minutes, which may have damaged bits of insulation and temporarily changed the attitude of the spacecraft. What caused it remained a mystery until in 2006, astronomer Paul Wiegert examined old comet data and found that Mariner 4 would have been 20 million km (12 million mi) from the possibly shattered nucleus of D/1895 Q1 (Swift). However, Wiegert noted that the comet's orbit during its 1895 apparition wasn't precisely known, leading to a large potential error in the comet's expected location in 1967.
See also
List of minor planets and comets visited by spacecraft
References
External links
D/1895 Q1 at the JPL Small-Body Database