Comet ‘piggyback’

SCIENCE fiction movies and novels have long regaled us with fantastic tales about space. A good many of those sci-fi offerings revolve around comets, those interstellar travellers whose rare appearances brought dread and fascination to ancient and modern stargazers alike.

For centuries comets were looked upon as harbingers of disasters, plagues, wars and other dark events that have been foisted on humankind. Today, science has torn down that long-held belief, and astrophysicists study comets to pick up clues about the origin of the universe and the beginnings of life on Earth.