Abstract: | When comets such as Hale-Bopp pass close to the Eath they bring clues to the origins of the solar system; and like all great travellers they tell stories of lost world before heading off again to distant much more than tales. They might have brought the right conditions for the origine of life itselfIn an edited version of a talk given at Uppsala university, Sweden in May Hans Rickman describes how comets might have brought the oceans from distant parts of the solar system and, opposite, a brief report of the lateston the theory |