Edmond Halley

Edmond, or Edmund, Halley (October 29, 1656, Haggerston, London - January 14, 1742) was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist. He published papers on the Solar System and sunspots; whilst an undergraduate at The Queens College at Oxford. On leaving Oxford, in 1676, he visited St Helena where his additions to the star map earned him comparison with Tycho Brahe. Halley was the first to successfully predict the return, in 1758, of Halley's Comet.

Halley was friends with Isaac Newton and helped convince him to write the Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis (1687). In 1720, he was appointed Astronomer Royal, a position which he held until his death. He was buried at St Margeret's Church in Lee in south-east London.