Sky’s the Limit

If you’ve ever wanted to bring the sheer delight of astronomy and space exploration into your classroom, Microsoft makes it easy and free. The company’s Worldwide Telescope program uses Web 2.0 Visualization software to give classes guided tours of the cosmos. On top of explanatory videos, the site has a rich array of digital images of the sky taken by a variety of world’s telescopes. Just download the 20MB beta application (and Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 if you don’t already have it) and buckle your seatbelts because your class might make a quick stop at one of Saturn’s moons on its way to Andromeda and beyond. Like all software that’s still being developed, Worldwide Telescope has its quirks and at times it surprisingly slow, but when it blast offs, it can propel a class of kids into outer space.