If you or your kids are into astronomy, then you’ll definitely want to check out the new public beta of Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope web application. WorldWide Telescope stitches images together from a variety of sources including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer Space Telescope and others. Users can even choose which telescope they want to look through! The application itself utilizes Microsoft’s Visual Experience Engine which provides “seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments.” 

I took the application for a spin and I must say, it’s a pretty nifty app. I loved the Guided Tours section of the application which as the name implies provides a guided visual learning experience of the heavens above. Perhaps the best part is simply taking the application for a spin on your own. Pan across the sky, zoom in on a section of space and discover what’s there.

Also – make sure to check out Ars Technica’s first look at the WorldWide Telescope application here on their website. They had this to say:

The greatly expanded catalog of objects to look at, along with the guided tours, makes the WorldWide Telescope much more along the lines of what I was looking for in a Google Earth/Virtual Earth equivalent of the entire universe. Kudos to Microsoft Research for a compelling product.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, WorldWide Telescope,