Microsoft launched its WorldWide Telescope late Monday.
The free Web-based application allows users to zoom around the universe and browse through the galaxy on their own or take guided tours of different outer-space destinations developed by astronomers and academics.
The application itself is a blend of software and Web 2.0 services created with the Microsoft high performance Visual Experience Engine, which allows seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments. Worldwide Telescope stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies, and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky. People can freely browse through the solar system, galaxy and beyond, or take advantage of a growing number of guided tours of the sky hosted by astronomers and educators at major universities and planetariums