Comets in Wright's theory of the universe, 1750. The diagram shows the trajectory of a comet with orbits of Saturn and Jupiter, as well as the inner planets. The solar system is surrounded by a ouroboros (world-encircling serpent). This page is from 'An original theory or new hypothesis of the Universe' (1750) by English astronomer Thomas Wright (1711-1786). In this book Wright gave the first explanation of the appearance of the Milky Way as being due to our immersion in a layer of stars. He proposed that the Sun is one of many stars orbiting around a Divine Centre and that the stars are distributed either in annuli (rings) or in thin, concentric, spherical shells.