In 2009, NASA announced that samples returned from Comet Wild 2 during

the Stardust mission revealed a building block of life — glycine. According to NASA, it

was the first time an amino acid was found in a comet. 
In 2014, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft entered orbit around Comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The Philae lander touched down on Nov 12, 2014.
Among the Rosetta mission's many discoveries was the first detection of organic
molecules on the surface of a comet; a strange song from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko;
the possibilities that the comet's odd shape may be due to it spinning apart, or
resulting from two comets fusing together; and the fact that comets may possess hard, crispy
outsides and cold but soft insides, just like fried ice cream. On Sept. 30, 2016, Rosetta
intentionally crash-landed on the comet, ending its mission.
June 19, 2019, ESA selected the Comet Interceptor mission as the last "fast" or F-class
mission. The new mission will intercept an as-yet-undiscovered comet as it enters
the inner solar system. The mission consists of three spacecraft that will capture
snapshots of the comet from different angles, creating a 3D profile of the object
and characterizing its surface, composition, shape and structure. Comet interceptor is
due to launch in 2028 according to ESA. 
Famous comets
Halley's Comet is likely the most famous comet in the world, even depicted in the
Bayeux Tapestry that chronicled the Battle of Hastings of 1066. It becomes visible to
the naked eye about every 75 years when it nears the sun. When Halley's Comet
zoomed near Earth in 1986, five spacecraft flew past it and gathered
unprecedented details, coming close enough to study its nucleus, which is normally
concealed by the comet's coma. 
The roughly potato-shaped, 9-mile-long (15 km) comet contains equal parts ice and
dust, with some 80% of the ice made of water and about 15% of it consisting of
frozen carbon monoxide. Researchers believe other comets are chemically similar
to Halley's Comet. The nucleus of Halley's Comet was unexpectedly extremely dark
black — its surface, and perhaps those of most others, is apparently covered with a
black crust of dust over most of the ice, and it only releases gas when holes in this
crust expose ice to the sun.

The comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided spectacularly with Jupiter in 1994, with the giant
planet's gravitational pull ripping the comet apart for at least 21 visible impacts. The
largest collision created a fireball that rose about 1,800 miles (3,000 km) above the
Jovian cloud tops as well as a giant dark spot more than 7,460 miles (12,000 km)
across— about the size of the Earth — and was estimated to have exploded with
the force of 6,000 gigatons of TNT. 
Scattered fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 were captured on May 17, 1994 by the Hubble Space Telescope. The fragments
impacted Jupiter in July 1994. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/H. Weaver and E. Smith (STSci))
A relatively recent, highly visible comet was Hale-Bopp, which came within 122
million miles (197 million km) of Earth in 1997. Its unusually large nucleus gave off a
great deal of dust and gas — estimated at roughly 18 to 25 miles (30 to 40 km)
across — appeared bright to the naked eye.
Comet ISON was expected to give a spectacular show in 2013. However, the sun-
grazer did not survive its close encounter with the sun and was destroyed in
December that year.
In 2021, scientists found what could be the largest comet ever seen. Comet C/2014
UN271 or Bernardinelli-Bernstein after its discoverers, University of Pennsylvania
graduate student Pedro Bernardinelli and astronomer Gary Bernstein, was officially
designated a comet on June 23. Astronomers estimate this icy body has a diameter of
62 miles to 124 miles (100 km to 200 km), making it about 10 times wider than a
typical comet. The comet will make its closest approach to our planet in 2031 but
will remain at quite a distance even then.