Microsoft is boldly going where the company has never gone before — and I am tempted to say, “an operating system that won’t crash,” but instead I will say, “into space.”

The company, which obviously has moment on its hands, has released Microsoft WorldWide Telescope, which is a really cool and ill-named application. It should be “Universal Telescope,” I think. But basically, it is Google Earth for the universe. It takes 13 terabytes of notes from the universe’s coolest telescopes, including the immortal Hubble, and provides a basically seamless view of the universe traveled by Captain Kirk, Bones and his buddies.

You have to install a small application on your PC. But after that, it’s a pretty seamless experience. Interestingly, in one case, my installing it on a laptop running Windows Vista caused the machine to crash with a Blue Screen of Death, which is either ironic or Voyager phoning home.

The best part of that

application is it shows the huge size of the universe and brings that home in some sort of scale that is really easy for children to understand. I hope to be able to give some of that experience to my kids.

I never will forget working on a volunteer project with some schoolchildren a few years ago and actually landing an appearance by a NASA engineer who brought with him some moon rocks. When he showed them to the fifth-graders during an outside classroom, I expected the sound of collective awe. Instead, the kids didn’t seem to really care they were holding an actual moon rock. When I pointed out to the kids how cool it was, one boy pointed to the moon in the afternoon sky and said, “What’s the big deal? It’s right there!”

Anyway, the application is pre-populated with all kinds of celestial locations you can…

Orginal post by Top Tech News