Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope was made available to the general public yesterday. I’ve only been able to use it a few times since I installed it on my Windows machine (not available for Mac). The World Wide Telescope makes very detailed, high resolution images (scientific quality) from space available to anyone with access to a Windows based computer.

Applications for Education
The World Wide Telescope is a free download that science teachers should insist on having installed on the computers that their students use. The World Wide Telescope allows students to explore space on their own in a way never possible before yesterday. As Curtis Wong points out in his interview with Robert Scoble, the World Wide Telescope will bring space and show the Milky Way to students growing up in cities who may have never been able to see the Milky Way before. (Watch Mr. Wong’s interview with Robert Scoble in the video below).

This video from Rich White demonstrates the use of the World Wide Telescope with an interactive whiteboard.

This video from Robert Scoble is an interview with two developers of the World Wide Telescope.

This is the presentation of the World Wide Telescope at the TED Conference from February 2008.