By DPA
Hamburg : A new function in Google Earth has opened up the cosmos to Internet viewers.
The new “sky” portion of the software allows users to view the starry skies, navigating through the galaxies with the click of a mouse, says Google spokesman Stefan Keuchel from the company’s Hamburg offices.
Constellations, planets, and nebulae are all offered alongside information about their position, size and orbits.
The highest resolution images of space come from scientific installations such as the Baltimore’s Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the company reports. Views normally reserved just for astronauts are provided through 129 images of NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Animations illustrate the course of the moon’s phases and the position of planets two months ahead of time. The various stages of the life of a star are also depicted.
“Sky” is a component of Google Earth, which is used by roughly 250 million people worldwide. Google hopes for an active exchange among users, its spokesman says.
It presumes that its views of space on home PCs will provide an impulse for more people to get interested in the universe. “Sky” is integrated into version 4.2 of Google Earth, which is available for free download at http://earth.google.com.