The Giotto Rendez-vous with Comet Halley - 20 years ago. ESA wrote space history, on 13/14 March 1986, when its space probe Giotto passed by Comet Halley at a distance of just 600 kilometres, taking spectacular images of the comet's nucleus and successfully completing Europe's first deep space mission. Today's Exchange provides an account of this event, without which Europe would probably not be the major player in planetary exploration it has become since.