Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman, announced that Worldwide Telescope will be launched before the end of the month. Using the best images from the Hubble Space telescope and about ten earth bound telescopes, this software will allow users to view the outer space. It will allow viewing similar to NASA World Wind, Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google Earth. The software grabs the images from the database of very complex data gathered over many years from various telescopes.

According to Microsoft, this software is created in honor of researcher Jim Gray (missing at sea last year), who has worked on the SkyServer project, which acted as a foundation for the Worldwide Telescope.

The Worldwide Telescope is similar to Google Sky and Celestia, to an extent. Google Sky combines high resolution imagery and informative overlays to provide a unique playground for visualizing and learning about space. The images used to visualize the sky are offered by Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Digital Sky Survey Consortium (DSSC), CalTech’s Palomar Observatory, the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Center (UK ATC), and the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO).

Source: Microsoft to Launch Worldwide Telescope This Month

By: Kaung | ChitChat247.com | KMKBlog.com