Galaxy Travel Guide for Homemakers

With a new feature in Google Earth, you can now explore space while sitting in front of your computer.

Google announced “Sky,” a new feature in Google Earth that lets users see what the starry sky looks like from the surface of our planet. With Sky, Google Earth users can freely traverse the sky of our Earth, so they can view 100 million stars and navigate between 200 million galaxies. High-resolution images and various layers of information provide a special space for better understanding and study of outer space - all you have to do is click on the "Switch to Sky" button in the "View" menu of Google Earth. The user interface and navigation (including zooming, searching, selecting layers or "My Places") are the same as before.

As part of Sky, Google has created 7 new layers of information to help you learn about different celestial phenomena:

• Constellations - The "Constellations" layer connects the corresponding points of the constellations from Cassiopeia to Andromeda and displays their names. Users can learn more interesting information about the stars that make up their favorite constellations.
• Amateur astronomy - In the "Backyard Astronomy" layer, users can find a lot of information about stars, galaxies and nebulae visible with the naked eye, general or small astronomical telescopes. This is especially useful for amateur astronomers who can access information about the night sky in a well-edited format.
• Hubble Space Telescope Images - The "HST" (Hubble Space Telescope) layer contains 129 stunningly beautiful high-resolution images taken by NASA's Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
• Moon – In the “Moon” layer, you can see different animations about the phases of the moon and the position of our celestial follower.
• Planets - The "Planets" layer presents the 7 other planets of our solar system in more detail, while plotting their orbits calculated for the next 2 months.
• User's Guide to Galaxies - The "Users Guide to Galaxies" layer allows users to take a virtual tour of different galaxies from the Ursa Minor dwarf galaxy to the Milky Way.
• Life of a Star - The "Life of a Star" layer guides users through the entire life cycle of a star from birth to death.

Sky is supported by various scientific sources (e.g., the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Digital Sky Survey Consortium (DSSC), the CalTech Palomar Observatory, the United Created by Google’s Pittsburgh development team by collecting images from the UK’s Astronomical Technology Center (UK ATC) and the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO). An important factor in the birth of the initiative was the fact that the University of Washington participated in the Google Visiting Faculty program, which led leading scientists to visit Google, where they could continue their research for about 6 to 12 months.

To access the Sky view in Google Earth, users must download the latest version of the program from the following website: http://earth.google.com. The new feature will be available in all 13 Earth languages. To learn more about Sky, check out the demo (http://earth.google.com/sky/skyedu) or watch Sally Ride and Greg Coombie, a Google engineer, demonstrate some of Sky’s features (http://earth.google.com/sky).