WorldWide Telescope
planets, stars, astronomy, telescope, earth, space, nebulae, constellation, galaxy, supernova, universe, radiation
Product Category: Software
WorldWide Telescope - turn your computer into a virtual telescope and explore the universe!
When my 5-year-old asked me "Daddy, what does the earth look like from space?" I struggled to find a suitable answer. I tried to explain it with words and even dusted off the Atlas from our library in an attempt to answer, before I remembered the Microsoft Research WorldWide Telescope.
After downloading the application I was able to show my daughters what our planet and different countries look like from the stars. That opened a whole host of doors for us, and thanks to WorldWide Telescope's guided tours we were soon on our way to the farthest flung reaches of our galaxy - and many others.
None of us are amateur astronomers but since then we’ve toured all sorts of galaxies, planets, stars, constellations and nebulae, experiencing the majesty and power of the universe. It’s been great fun for my wife and I and our children, and obviously would be a great tool for homework or a research project.
The technology behind WorldWide Telescope is also pretty interesting. It’s actually a web application that brings together imagery from the best ground and space based observatories across the world, to allow people to easily explore the night sky through their computers - and to check out images from famous events.
The application itself is a blend of software and services created with the Microsoft high performance Visual Experience Engine, which allows seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments. WorldWide Telescope enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope and stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky.
People can freely browse through the solar system, galaxy and beyond, or take advantage of a growing number of guided tours of the sky hosted by astronomers and educators at major universities and planetariums.
So for most people it’s really simple to use, and fun. But there’s also plenty there for people who are passionate about astronomy, with the service going well beyond the simple browsing of images.
Users can choose which telescope they want to look through, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer Space Telescope or others.
You can view the locations of planets in the night sky — in the past, present or future. They can view the universe through different wavelengths of light to reveal hidden structures in other parts of the galaxy. Taken as a whole, the application provides a top-to-bottom view of the science of astronomy. 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. Enjoy...
Get WorldWide Telescope - WorldWide Telescope is available in either a Windows or a Web Client from this site
Learn more
Take a tour
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Support / How to use it
Create your own WorldWide Telescope tour
After downloading the application I was able to show my daughters what our planet and different countries look like from the stars. That opened a whole host of doors for us, and thanks to WorldWide Telescope's guided tours we were soon on our way to the farthest flung reaches of our galaxy - and many others.
None of us are amateur astronomers but since then we’ve toured all sorts of galaxies, planets, stars, constellations and nebulae, experiencing the majesty and power of the universe. It’s been great fun for my wife and I and our children, and obviously would be a great tool for homework or a research project.
The technology behind WorldWide Telescope is also pretty interesting. It’s actually a web application that brings together imagery from the best ground and space based observatories across the world, to allow people to easily explore the night sky through their computers - and to check out images from famous events.
The application itself is a blend of software and services created with the Microsoft high performance Visual Experience Engine, which allows seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments. WorldWide Telescope enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope and stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky.
People can freely browse through the solar system, galaxy and beyond, or take advantage of a growing number of guided tours of the sky hosted by astronomers and educators at major universities and planetariums.
So for most people it’s really simple to use, and fun. But there’s also plenty there for people who are passionate about astronomy, with the service going well beyond the simple browsing of images.
Users can choose which telescope they want to look through, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Spitzer Space Telescope or others.
You can view the locations of planets in the night sky — in the past, present or future. They can view the universe through different wavelengths of light to reveal hidden structures in other parts of the galaxy. Taken as a whole, the application provides a top-to-bottom view of the science of astronomy. 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. Enjoy...
Download WorldWide Telescope
Get WorldWide Telescope - WorldWide Telescope is available in either a Windows or a Web Client from this site
More information and Resources
Learn more
Take a tour
Share it
Support / How to use it
Create your own WorldWide Telescope tour
