NDNL

Today, Microsoft released it’s ‘Spring Beta’ version of WorldWide Telescope, a free download of this much-discussed and eagerly awaited visualization application (PC-only, for now).

The app is easy enough to describe: think of it as Google Earth for deep space. Yet, this description doesn’t do justice to it.

(Click image for full-size screenshot)

WWT brings together a vast set of space imagery from a multitude of earth and space based telescopes and allows you to easily navigate the skies… and the supernovas… and the interstellar gas clouds, star clusters and nebulae…

And, you can do this all with visible light images, infrared or radio waves. Added to that there are a number of ‘tours’ you can take, or as this feature is described on the WWT site:

Join Harvard Astronomer Alyssa Goodman on a journey showing how dust in the Milky Way Galaxy condenses into stars and planets. Take a tour with University of Chicago Cosmologist Mike Gladders two billion years into the past to see a gravitational lens bending the light from galaxies allowing you to see billions more years into the past.

I’ve written about the Celestron SkyScout and the astronomy apps Celestia and Stellarium before, but WWT easily tops those. The zoom level you get with WWT is basically amazing. You need plenty of RAM for it to run, but then you get swift zoom speeds and smooth navigation and nothing less than an experience that is simply impressive.

Obviously, WWT is one of those tools you need to see, instead of read about. So go get it and play around a bit. Or, if you can’t get to it just yet, check out these screenshots and watch out for more demos like these.

WWT is going to be talked about the next couple days.