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March 13, 2008

Google Sky, Now in Your Web Browser

Erick Schonfeld

40 comments »

So while the rest of us who are not Robert Scoble are still waiting to cry and experience Microsoft Research’s WorldWide telescope project that lets you zoom through the galaxy on your computer, Google is putting its not-quite-so-glitzy Google Sky software out on the Web. Glitzy or not (the site is a bit jerky), for astronomy buffs it is an amazing resource.

Google Sky was formerly available only within the Google Earth software, but now you can check it out with your browser. It lets you pan through the galaxy and check out different celestial bodies in ultraviolet, infrared, x-ray, or microwave light. The navigation is the familiar one you know from Google Maps, although I couldn’t immediately figure out how to zoom in and out. But I’m no rocket scientist. The best part about it is you can search the galaxy by typing astronomy terms into the search box. More details from the Google Lat Long Blog:

* Powerful search that lets you browse tens of thousands of named objects.
* Three optical sky surveys that show you what your naked eye would see if it had a really good zoom lens. Try switching to infrared, microwave, ultraviolet, or x-ray to see the sky in a completely different light. Or blend between these views to create unique visualizations on the fly.
* Galleries highlighting the best images from Hubble and many other telescopes.
* Current planet positions and constellations.
* Overlays of custom KML content. (Simply paste a Sky KML URL into the search box, just like on Google Maps.)
* Last but not least, the Earth & Sky podcasts gallery is not to be missed, particularly for those who run a classroom.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Web 2.0 News & Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Scott Manley

    March 13th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    Well this’ll stop me wasting my paycheck on any more astronomy gear.

    not that I can see very much through the light pollution in Oakland.

  2. John Wesley

    March 13th, 2008 at 5:11 pm

    Neat project. I hope this was somebody’s 20% time.

  3. vijay chandran

    March 13th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    @ john those days at google are gone

  4. Patrick

    March 13th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

    Gotta love Google’s ability to take the wind out of Microsoft’s sails at every junction.

  5. Handan Daily

    March 13th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

    Google sky was available great!

  6. Chris

    March 13th, 2008 at 6:00 pm

    This is nice, but it’s no replacement for a telescope.

  7. Unknown

    March 13th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

    OK, we get it. Scoble nearly cried!! Do you need to repeat it every post thats related to astronomy??

  8. college forum

    March 13th, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    I’m still waiting for Google Ocean.

  9. Fabian Schonholz

    March 13th, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    I was so excited and went to check it out with my kids that are science buffs and astronomy enthusiasts. They thought it was lame and not friendly. I would have to agree with them. I am bummed, because I like what Google does for the most part.

  10. Geek Madness

    March 13th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

    Whats the point of Google Ocean? Trying to find the best spot to fish?

  11. Matt

    March 13th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

    This is really cool, and exciting for a mac user who will be unable to enjoy the WWT (at first anyway… hint hint). Although it does seem a far cry from WWT, it’s better than nothing and I’m sure it will get tons of play.

  12. silly con valley

    March 13th, 2008 at 8:18 pm

    @10 no dude it’s for identifying all the garbage floating around

  13. Chris

    March 13th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

    “I’m still waiting for Google Ocean.”

    That’s behind Google Spelunking, and Google “the core” for those that want to waste hours of their lives roaming through pictures of the earth’s crust.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Core

    And what about detailed mapping of the atmosphere at any given moment? Why rely on radar? Why can’t we see into into Kim Jong-Il’s numerous wives bedrooms at 3AM from our laptops on wifi too?

    Frankly I’m a little disappointed with Google.

  14. Miracle Blade

    March 13th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    Looks cool. I’ll have to check it out.

  15. iServiceshop

    March 13th, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    It’s our guess Google Sky will improve quickly; they’re far from dumb; and they are *certainly not the first huge Web firm to put a beta version in front of millions of users, to get massive feedback and determine user preferences..

    The Team
    http://iserviceshop.blogspot.com

  16. inkjetoffice

    March 13th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

    This is very nice. My childhood dream would come true. I’ll be able to see all the stars in my dream when I was young. Thanks Google makes my dream come true.

    http://blog.inkjetoffice.com
    http://www.inkjetoffice.com

  17. Jay Gaines

    March 13th, 2008 at 9:29 pm

    A flash version of Google Sky would be better.

    I might try to hack one together over the weekend using some code I wrote for Google Maps.

  18. Hypnosis Blog

    March 13th, 2008 at 10:13 pm

    Wow, that’s totally awesome!

  19. Adam

    March 13th, 2008 at 11:01 pm

    Weak. The imagery is spotty and the star colors are missing. But what is most surprisingly bad about GSky is that almost nothing is clickable. If you look at dedicated astro software like TheSky, even old versions from the early 90s, you will find that every single star, deep-space object (like galaxies), planet, asteroid, etc is clickable. Doing so brings up a wealth of information that Google could no doubt have scraped from a variety of sites but didn’t. Even the features that are here, like the microwave background radiation data, aren’t useful; where, for example, is the legend that correlates the microwave data’s color with the actual microwaves’ intensity? This feels more like an alpha to me, or as @4 sort of implies, like something released early to box out MS. Not that anyone really cares — how big is the astronomy market, anyway?

  20. http://www.jeqq.com

    March 13th, 2008 at 11:19 pm

    Google i can say they are the best.they always come out with gr8 ideas…

    http://www.jeqq.com

  21. bon lay

    March 13th, 2008 at 11:33 pm

    i wann find my God in the sky!

  22. Michael Vu

    March 13th, 2008 at 11:39 pm

    Another awesome release by Google.

    http://www.fantasysportsmatrix.com

  23. Chris B.

    March 14th, 2008 at 12:36 am

    weak. weak. weak. they are so fixated on one-upping MSFT that they’ve started to ship sub-par products. will wait for WWT … well worth the wait.

  24. Ray

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:21 am

    Looks like a pale copy of WWT.

  25. mr nice

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:34 am

    it’s extremely buggy.

  26. John

    March 14th, 2008 at 1:41 am

    I saw WorldWide @ Techfest - it is awesome!

  27. Ghaus

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:12 am

    GUYS LISTEN !

    I found a bug in Google moon. :P

    Go where an American flag is standing and navigate a little, u will see that the shades are in the different direction, how can this be possible.
    This thing was all made up by NASA, and two powerful lights were used while filming this whole Moon scene.

    Do u still think that humans landed on moon. There is no air in moon, and look at the American flag, it is moving as there is a fast wind blowing. This is all a fake story build up by NASA, just like 9/11 was done by Bush !

    Grow up Guys !

  28. Ghaus

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:13 am

    And oh yeah !

    NASA fooled Google too ! Oh damn !

  29. me too

    March 14th, 2008 at 2:50 am

    so is this a quick “me too” frm google. but they delivered before MS.
    but im not impressed. why wud i want to use this.
    i mean i will check itout once. cool. thats abt it.

  30. Gordon

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:28 am

    This is a sub-par release from Google. The only people who will think this is a great release are those who have yet to experience the WWT.

  31. Steffest

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:54 am

    @29
    totally agreed.
    Google is just rushing this out to steal some attention from Microsofts WWT.
    It looks like it’s thrown together in a day or 2.
    Very weak, and it shows that Google at some points is as clueless as any other company.

  32. monica

    March 14th, 2008 at 3:56 am

    hi,, Its really great..

  33. JT

    March 14th, 2008 at 7:28 am

    #3 Vijay - Actually this was done in our 20% time, as the press release stated.

  34. chroot

    March 14th, 2008 at 7:31 am

    One word: Celestia.

  35. Brian

    March 14th, 2008 at 9:21 am

    Is this like a “telescope-in-a-PC” thing?

    bookmarked @ http://www.livbit.com

  36. moot

    March 14th, 2008 at 10:52 am

    Gmail is down!!!!

  37. Mark Wallace

    March 14th, 2008 at 11:02 am

    the best thing about it is actually that when you click on the Earth in the bottom browser bar, it opens Google Maps in a new tab. try it.

    @chroot: Celestia ftw totally

  38. Rakesh Rajan

    March 16th, 2008 at 9:11 am

    It seems that they are loading the tiles only from http://mw1.google.com. If they use mutiple sub-domains ( isn’t Steve Souders in google these days ?), the whole experience can be even better!

  39. Austin Storm

    March 16th, 2008 at 1:39 pm

    You are never going to let Scoble forget this, are you?

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