Worldwide Telescope lets you view the ether from your desk

According to Microsoft, The WorldWide Telescope project is a 'Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in theworld for a seamless exploration of the universe.' The imagery used in WWT comes from many telescopes including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS).

In a similar vein to Google Sky (Google Earth) effort, WWTis a portal that brings together terabytes of data - images, information and narrative the blends the vast information into a single point, available to anybody running Windows and an Internet connection.

While WWT is a nice showcase of Microsoft technology (including the Microsoft Visual Experience Engine) the real trick is bringing together all of this disparate data into one place. It takes an organisation with the money and the clout that Microsoft has to do this.

The WWT is designed with both consumers and scientists in mind and is being touted as a tool to 're-awaken' the interest for science in younger generations. Is it as important as sending the first person to the moon? Not quite, but it's still pretty impressive.

If you're running Windows you'll need to ensure you've got a PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo running at 2GHz or faster, at least 1GB of RAM and a graphics card with 128MB RAM. If you've got a Mac, it'd better be an Intel Mac and be capable of running Boot Camp -- 3D graphics don't run well under virtualisation.