Google Sky brings the heavens to a browser near you

Google has unshackled its heavenly Google Sky from Google Earth and made it available to the hoi-polloi through any web browser: The browser-based Google Sky The material on offer includes some nice Hubble snaps, Chandra X-ray, GALEX Ultraviolet and Spitzer infrared showcases, and a historical layer showing how past …

[Graham Dawson]

"Spitzer infrared showcases"

The things people will do for a bit more exposure...

Mine's the dirty brown mac with the camera in the buttonhole...

[Anonymous Coward]

cool

We're all gonna die though, there's no sun (or sol)

Very cool though, cold even, really really really cold.

[4a$$Monkey]

space battle

Wow! In almost no time at all I found this image...

http://www.google.com/sky/#latitude=66.33970959528405&longitude=-42.44293212890625&zoom=9&Spitzer=0.00&ChandraXO=0.00&Galex=0.00&IRAS=0.00&WMAP=0.00&Cassini=0.00&slide=1&mI=-1&oI=-1

Looks like evidence for some kind of space battle to me!

[Sarev]

Privacy implications...

Hopefully, amanfrommars will be writing a comment soon to complain about the privacy implications of this latest move by the big G.

[Adam Foxton]

Space Battle

Wow, that's odd!

Any astronomers out there want to enlighten me/us to what this is? Aside from proof of phaser-weilding stealth craft?

[HFoster]

Re: SpaceBattle

It kind of does. That is, until you recall that light is itself invisible, and can only be "seen" by way of the things it reflects off of or refracts through.

Still, there's no reason that couldn't be two laser beams passing through a very large dust/chaff/debris cloud.

I think I must be suffering an alcohol deficiency.

[Miguel]

Alan Parson's Project?

Looks like a remnant of the "LASERS" from the Alan Parson's Project.

[Phil Wray]

re: space battle

after zooming in too the green beam i expected to see a star destroyer, but them pesky imperial scum must have developed clocking technology.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Adam Foxton

it's a satellite going across the field of view then going into eclipse.

[Rafael]

Re: Spacebattle

The SDSS (visible) image is a mosaic, it is not perfectly aligned. The coloured slits are the edges of the images which composed the mosaic.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Rafael

No you're totally wrong, it's clearly the trails of two starships entering hyperspace.

[James Whale]

"the hoi polloi"

[pedant]

"the hoi polloi" is a tautology - "hoi polloi" means "the many" in Greek, so to say "the hoi polloi" is to say "the the many".

[/pedant]

=D

[Tim]

Anyone figured it out?

I must admit this thingy has lost me completely, I even tried the help & about features, no luck tho. Just what am I looking at? To start with, what does the time figure represent, and how does this correalate to a position in the sky? Which way is North & East, & doesn't it need to know where I am?

Say I want to know where a given planet will be tonight at 10pm, will this handle it, or are the times only relative (not relative in the Einstein sense, we all know that one.. or are told we do)?

Paris.. cos she used night vision too.

[Anonymous Coward]

@rafael

Spoilsport :-(

[Sarah Bee]

Re: That's no moon...

Hello. If you want to post a Google image link that is long enough to actually reach the moon, please TinyURL the beast. Thanking you.

[Curtis W. Rendon]

Earth and Sky podcasts

assuming they are the same Earth and Sky broadcasts we get on public radio they are well worth opening the pod bay doors for.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's no moon ...

That so-called space battle is clearly someone having a quick game of Missile Command.

[Roland Korn]

2001, errr no, 2010. Oh whatever ....

I could not help but noticing the regimented series of Monoliths (m) in the area of Ursa Major.

Now what are they up to now?

They failed spectacularly when working with the simians on this smileball. (I mean slime covered planetary body)

Bones only because weesa-all-gonna-die (bad Jar-Jar impersonation) when the galactic bypass goes right through our neighbourhood.

[Rafael]

@Anyone figured it out?

"Say I want to know where a given planet will be tonight at 10pm"...

Use celestia or stellarium?

@AC - Sorry for being a spoilsport. There is enough weirdness in the universe *without* the artifacts, just search for it (hint: Seyfert's sextet - no need for puny space death rays)

Rafael, amateur astrogeek

[Simon Westerby]

Sod the star destroyers...

.. we've found the empires next 1/2 build deathstar

http://tinyurl.com/26bvdg

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice

Nice to play with, but does it really have any real world use?

[e-mail] (Send an email to this if you want to get blocked from my mailserver!)

[Andy]

@Sarah Bee

TinyURL? As a verb? Say it ain't so...

[Sarah Bee]

Re: @Sarah Bee

Oh yes. That's pretty bad, isn't it. But not as bad as a link the length of the M25.

[Peter Johnstone]

Looking for Gallifrey

Can anyone tell me how to find the Kasterborous galaxy on google sky?