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Free space tours with Microsoft
13/05/2008 21:31 - (SA)
Daisuke Wakabayashi
Seattle - Any Star Trek fan knows
that space travel is not always easy, but Microsoft Corp wants
to make travelling the "final frontier" as simple as turning on
your computer.
The world's largest software maker launched a free software
application called WorldWide Telescope on Monday that allows
everyone from space novices to astronomy professors to easily
explore galaxies, star systems and distant planets.
The WorldWide Telescope stitches together 12 terabytes -
the data equivalent of 2.6 billion pages of text - of pictures
from sources including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra
X-Ray Observatory Centre and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Breathtaking clarity
The experience is similar to playing a video game, allowing
users to zoom in and out of galaxies that are thousands of
light years away. It allows seamless viewing of far-away star
systems and rarely-seen space dust in breathtaking clarity.
A test version of the software is available for download at
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org.
Google Sky
Microsoft archrival Google Inc also has its eyes
on the skies. Google Sky started as an extension of space data
and images into Google Earth before eventually unveiling a
version that can be used through a Web browser and is also free.
Microsoft said it will release the WorldWide Telescope free
of charge as a tribute to Jim Gray, a Microsoft researcher who
went missing off the coast of California while sailing last
year. Gray worked on projects with astronomers to organise the
vast amounts of data and images being pulled from satellites.
To spark children's interest
Microsoft expects the technology used in the WorldWide
Telescope to help the company in future software applications,
but the goal for this program is to spark the interest of
children to want to learn more about space and possibly pursue
careers in science and engineering.
"My idea of success is if WorldWide Telescope changes how
people see the universe and for a generation of kids to have a
degree of knowledge about space that they are just not getting
now," said Curtis Wong, manager of Microsoft's Next Media
Research Group.
Contextualising astronomy
"Contextualising astronomy is missing right now. You see
all of these Hubble images and they're amazing, but you have no
idea about how big they are, how far away it is."
The software allows users to develop their own guided tours
of the universe to share with others or take part in a guided tour
created by astronomy experts.
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