Surfing the internet becomes surfing in space with WorldWide Telescope and the war, now with no holds barred, moves between the skies between Google and Microsoft. Microsoft makes available to everyone a free application, WorldWide Telescope, to explore the space while sitting in front of your monitor as if you were looking through a telescope. In fact, the images taken by a telescope are indeed and among the sources used, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope, at the base of the project, stand out. WorldWide Telescope users will be able to see the sky, delve into the radiation clouds, navigate the stars, explore entire galaxies and take advantage of the many vistee features. Discovering the remains of a supernova that exploded thousands of years ago must be an exciting experience.
WorldWide Telescope, is a spectacular online telescope that can be downloaded as a program or viewed on the internet browser.
On the Slooh site there is a Space Camera, a camera with live footage from satellites. Each day focuses on an apocalyptic or interest event, from eruptions to collisions with a mythical "red planet", Slooh officials said.
The ESASky website to see the entire 3D star map, with a simplified view but of great graphic and real impact.
READ ALSO: PC programs with interactive Planetarium and 3D Solar System
Obviously the main site to see the online space with telescopes and satellites is that of NASA which on its site reports news, videos and live images of the main space events. There are also specials with the robot on Mars Curiosity, the Mayans, launches and much more. NASA also offers free applications for iPhone and Android. In particular there is NASA Eye, the best alternative to Google Sky (see below), to see the Earth from Space and then the planets and the whole solar system thanks to a realistic simulation and full of high resolution images.
In another article, however, there are space flight simulations on a spaceship to see Earth and to study how NASA astronauts work.
As usual, the Microsoft project arrives in response to the Telescope launched a couple of months ago by Google, Google Sky, as an extension of Google Earth. Even Google Sky allows you to navigate between the celestial bodies, learn about the constellations, look at the images photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope with different viewing options; there are also some historical maps and podcasts to listen to. Google Sky has now been integrated into Google Earth which allows you to see the surface of Mars and the Moon.
Also from Google, you can explore the planets in Google Maps .
Other simpler programs to see the starry sky and know everything about the stars and planets are also:
- Celestia is a free program to download and install on your Windows computer, with which you can explore space and find eclipses in the universe.
- Digital Universe, very realistic, to be used as a telescope.
- Aciqra
- HNSkY
A much more ambitious and powerful Opensource project is Stellarium, free software that can transform your computer into a real planetarium for an extraordinary 3D astronomical exploration in three dimensions!
Stellarium simulates the observation of the cosmos as if it were made from the earth with a powerful telescope : the coordinates of a star, constellation, planet or nebula can be entered to begin exploration. Stellarium allows you to identify and “explore” more than 600.00 stars by following their movement with respect to your virtual observation point on earth, displaying the constellations with the symbols of the zodiac, seeing the various 3D nebulae. You can also simulate exploration with the presence of the earth's atmosphere at any time of the day (from sunrise to sunset) and eclipses of the moon or sun.
Very high resolution and complete images, photographed from all over the world, of the Milky Way have emerged recently, a must see.
On the National Geographic website it is possible to see a really interesting interactive map of the Moons, with the possibility to see all the details not only of the Moon that revolves around the Earth, but also the moons of the other planets of the solar system.
The best astronomy sites to learn about space, planets and stars are on another page.
