Solar system. Historical artwork of the solar system and neighbouring systems, with orbits of comets around each star. This illustration is from the book 'The use of globes', published by astronomer Thomas Wright (1711-1786) in London in 1740. Wright wrote stars are so many suns, that each of these stars or suns is attended, (as ours is), by a proper number of planets and comets; and that each hath a gravity independent of each other... (so that) these several systems cannot interfere with one another ". Thomas Wright was a self-taught astronomer from Durham, England."