The skies may be the next frontier in travel yet not even the wealthiest space tourist can zoom out to, say, the Crab Nebula, the Trapezium Cluster or Eta Carinae, a star 100 times more massive than the sun and 7500 light-years away. But those galactic destinations and thousands of others can be toured and explored at the controls of a computer mouse, with the constellations, stars and space dust displayed in vivid detail and animated imagery across the screen.
Twirling galaxies, exotic nebulae and exploding stars are now just a mouse click away for amateur astronomers. Microsoft has launched WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches together images from some of the best ground- and space-based telescopes. Read more
Microsoft has launched its WorldWide Telescope on Monday.
"The WorldWide Telescope is a powerful tool for science and education that makes it possible for everyone to explore the universe" - Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman.
The World Wide Telescope: A new view of the night sky Microsoft imaging project will change how people see the heavens when the website launches in coming weeks
WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a rich visualisation environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space telescopes in the world for a seamless, guided exploration of the universe. WorldWide Telescope, created with Microsoft's high-performance Visual Experience Engine, enables seamless panning and zooming across the night sky blending terabytes of images, data, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich, immersive experience.