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Comet Catalina To Pass By Earth For the Final Time
StartsWithABang writes: Originating from the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, comets are generally thought of as periodic objects, with their initial trajectories having been perturbed by either Neptune, another distant object or a passing star or rogue planet. But most comets aren't periodic; they're transient instead, where a trip into the inner Solar System gives them additional gravitational perturbations, causing them to either fly into the Sun or gain enough kinetic energy to escape entirely. This latter fate is the case for Comet Catalina, which reaches perihelion on November 15th and then heads out of the Solar System after putting on one final show for observers on Earth.
We'd have to grab it or land on it...which means we'd have to match its speed...which means we'd be going fast enough to do this anyway, so why bother grabbing a comet?
This makes Newtonian sense, however I can think of one scenario where we don't need speed up to the comet. Place the spacecraft on its path. Basically instead of trying to catch the comet, we let the comet catch up with us. Not recommended for humans or delicate equipment.