Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer Carol Christian says about Sky: “You will be able to browse the sky like never before.” She adds, “These are really the images of the sky, Everything is real.”

The Sky is accessible through Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/) by clicking on “Switch to Sky” from the “view” drop-down menu. (You’ll need to download the newest software if you have not already done so.)

To learn more about Sky, view a demonstration at http://earth.google.com/sky/skyedu or watch former NASA astronaut Dr. Sally Ride and Google engineer Greg Coombe talk about some of Sky's capabilities at http://earth.google.com/sky.
Sky provides seven layers:

• Constellations;
• Backyard Astronomy (various celestial objects viewable with the naked eye, binoculars, and small telescopes);
• Hubble Space Telescope Imagery;
• Moon;
• Planets;
• User Guide to Galaxies; and
• Life of a Star.

The Sky program was created by the Google engineering team in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They used imagery, over one million photographs, from several scientific groups including the Space Telescope Science Institute (NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope) the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Digital Sky Survey Consortium, California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory, the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre, and the Angle-Australian Observatory.

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