Google Sky Online Launches

By: Mark Tenia Email
By: Mark Tenia Email

August 23, 2007

For all the amateur astronomers out there, now access to more than one million stars and 200 million galaxies is just a mouse click away.

Thursday Google launched Google Sky, a program that allows users to go through millions of galaxies.

The system is just an add on to Google earth. Images for the system came from six research centers from around the world. The program lets users glide through the stars and view the night sky from any angle.

Researchers say that air pollution is so bad in some areas it's hard enough to see stars normally. But google says using their new system people will be able to see stars that otherwise could only be seen using a very large telescope.

"In the system you can click on individual galaxies, you can click on stars and bring up more information for people like NASA, from the U.K. astronomy technology area and there's just a huge amount of data that is behind the picture" said Ed Parsons, Google Geospatial Technologist.

And this isn't the first time Google has venture into space. In 2006 the company launched Google Mars allowing people to browse the surface of the red planet.

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