We already have been visualizing the earth on our desktops for quite a long time now. Thanks Google Earth and Bind maps.
Ever wondered if we could visualize space this way as well? Imagine taking a close look at a stars or galaxies like Milky way right from your desktop? Or even taking a view of Moon or Mars? Well Microsoft Research has come up with a solution to this.
Microsoft Research WorldWide Telescope
Yes that’s true we have a software from Microsoft which will soon be integrated into Bing maps and it enables us to view space with the help of images captured by telescopes all around the world.
What is WWT
The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.
Choose from a growing number of guided tours of the sky by astronomers and educators from some of the most famous observatories and planetariums in the country. Feel free at any time to pause the tour, explore on your own (with multiple information sources for objects at your fingertips), and rejoin the tour where you left off. Join Harvard Astronomer Alyssa Goodman on a journey showing how dust in the Milky Way Galaxy condenses into stars and planets. Take a tour with University of Chicago Cosmologist Mike Gladders two billion years into the past to see a gravitational lens bending the light from galaxies allowing you to see billions more years into the past.
Some of the Tours available at the website are as follows:
Search for Extra Solar Planets
Apollo Missions 15 to 17
Pluto
Aug 1, 2008 Eclipse
Orion Nebula – Hubble’s
The Ring Nebula
Beautiful Nebulas
Center of the Milky Way
Universal Beauty
Impact with M31
and many more….
So what are you waiting for? just visit the website and enjoy looking at stars even during day time 🙂
