In the aerospace context, Giotto is a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft that was launched in 1985 to study Comet Halley.
The mission was a collaboration between the ESA and NASA, and it was the first spacecraft to make a close flyby of a comet, coming within about 600 kilometers of the comet's nucleus. Giotto's instruments studied the comet's composition, dust and gas production, and magnetic field. The data collected by Giotto helped scientists understand the composition and structure of comets, which are considered to be primitive building blocks of the Solar System. The Giotto mission was considered a success, and it paved the way for future comet-studying missions, such as NASA's Deep Impact and ESA's Rosetta.