Thereafter, he worked at the California Institute of Technology where he researched galaxies and supernovas under the leadership of countryman Fritz Zwicky from 1951 through 1955.

[2][3] At the Zimmerwald Observatory, near Bern, Wild made his first cometary discovery C/1957 U1 (1957 IX) on 2 October 1957.

[4][5] Professor Wild became director of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern in 1980, and remained in this position until 1991.

After the return of the spacecraft to earth, analysis of the dust particles by different researcher provided new insights about the evolution of the solar system.

Organic compounds such as glycine, a fundamental chemical building block of life, were found on a comet for the first time.