Star Gaze With Google Sky

Google has launched Sky, a new feature that enables users of Google Earth to view the sky as seen from planet Earth.

This tool enables all Google Earth users to view and navigate through 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies. To access Sky, users need only click "Switch to Sky" from the "view" drop-down menu in Google Earth, or click the Sky button on the Google Earth toolbar. The interface and navigation are similar to that of standard Google Earth steering, including dragging, zooming, search, "My Places," and layer selection.

As part of the new feature, Google is introducing seven informative layers - Constellations, Backyard Astronomy, Hubble Space Telescope Imagery, Moon, Planets, Users Guide to Galaxy and Life of a Star - that illustrate various celestial bodies and events.

The Constellations layer connects the points of constellations through space, labeling each with its given name; while the Backyard Astronomy layer lets users click through a variety of placemarks and information on stars, galaxies, and nebulae visible to the eye, binoculars and small telescopes. The Hubble Space Telescope Imagery provides users with over 120 high-resolution images provided by the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA/ESA's renowned orbiting telescope.

The Moon layer displays animations of two months of both lunar positions and moon phases; the Planets layer illustrates the seven official planets and their positions in the sky two months into the future; The Users Guide to Galaxies layer enables users to go on virtual tours through different types of galaxies, from Ursa Minor Dwarf to the Milky Way and the Life of a Star layer takes the user on a tour through the different stages of a star's life cycle.

Sky was created by Google's Pittsburgh engineering team by stitching together imagery from numerous scientific third parties including the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Digital Sky Survey Consortium (DSSC), CalTech's Palomar Observatory, the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre (UK ATC), and the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO). The initiative was born out of the University of Washington's participation in the Google Visiting Faculty Program, which makes it possible for leading academic researchers to visit Google for 6-12 month periods.

To access Sky in Google Earth, users need to download the newest version of Google Earth, available at: http://earth.google.com.

The feature will be available on all Google Earth domains, in 13 languages.