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Microsoft Launces Worldwide Telescope


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Twirling galaxies, exotic nebulae and exploding stars are now just a mouse click away for amateur astronomers.

 

Microsoft has launched WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches together images from some of the best ground- and space-based telescopes.

 

Collections include pictures from the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, as well as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

 

The web-based tool also allows users to pan and zoom around the planets, and trace their locations in the night sky.

 

"Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago," explained Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

 

"[it's] a beautiful platform for explaining and getting people excited about astronomy, and I think the professional astronomers will come to use it as well," said Roy Williams of the California Institute of Technology.

 

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