Guided Tours of the Sky

A very good addition to browsing “Goggle Earth” or “Goggle Sky” is the browsing of the new Microsoft’s Worldwide Telescope (WWT), the new Web 2.0 software, released on May 13. This new online tool can be downloaded on to our own computer free of charge. Microsoft researchers have dedicated this new computer program to the memory of Jim Gray, the famous American computer scientist who disappeared last year when he went sailing alone in California. He spent a large amount of time in his life to explore with astronomers on how to present map and satellite images of the world and the universe online. Thanks to Curtis Wong, head of a new media research group at Microsoft, who continues this challenging work, I can now make a virtual tour of the night sky to see the images of the universe from the best ground and space based, by just sitting in my own room. I can use my own computer to zoom in and out for a good look at different planets in the night sky. Better still, I can get close in to see the dust of the Milky Way Galaxy condenses into stars and planets in vivid 3-dimensions. The Worldwide Telescope inspires me to become an amateur explorer of the Universe without space traveling. I am sure that scientists and educators will also find this new software most useful to stimulate interest in astronomy. This is a real innovation, a contribution to public education and the scientific study of the Universe.

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