Illustration comparing the size of five comets to that of the Earth (A),from Thomas Wright's book An Original Theory of the Universe,published in London in 1750. The original caption is; "an exact scheme of the known comets,in just proportion,to the Globe of the Earth represented at A,with the Nuclus (sic),and part of the Tail of the Comet of 1665,B". C is the comet of 1682,D of 1665,E of 1742 and F of 1744. In this book Wright (1711-86) gave the first correct explanation of the appearance of the Milky Way as being due to our immersion in a layer of stars |