[FPSPACE] Google Earth now looks at the Sky

[LARRY KLAES]

In Google Earth, a Service for Scanning the Heavens

By MIGUEL HELFT

Published: August 22, 2007

After turning millions of Internet users into virtual explorers of the world 
with Google Earth, the Internet search giant is now hoping to turn many of 
them into virtual stargazers.

Google is unveiling within Google Earth today a new service called Sky that 
will allow users to view the skies as seen from Earth. Like Google Earth, 
Sky will let users fly around and zoom in, exposing increasingly detailed 
imagery of some 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies.

“You will be able to browse into the sky like never before,” said Carol 
Christian, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute, a 
nonprofit academic consortium that supports the Hubble Space Telescope.

While other programs allow users to explore the skies, they typically 
combine a mix of representations of stars and galaxies that are overlaid 
with photographs, Ms. Christian said. “These are really the images of the 
sky. Everything is real.”

Full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/technology/22sky.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin