what real life mission returned a sample from a comet
Sample-return mission Genesis was followed by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which returned comet samples to Earth on January 15, 2006. It safely passed by Comet Wild 2 and collected dust samples from the comet's coma while imaging the comet's nucleus. Stardust used a collector array made of low-density aerogel (99% of which is empty space), which has about 1/1000 of the density of glass. This permits the ability to collect the cometary particles without damaging them due to high impact velocities. Particle collisions with even slightly porous solid collectors would result in destruction of those particles and damage to the collection apparatus. During cruise, the second side of the array collected at least seven interstellar dust particles.[13]