Google Sky Features
Google sky, a feature in the Google earth was introduced on August 22, 2007. It makes it possible for the users to view the celestial bodies and stars. The Google in the course of partnership with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Dr.Alberto Conti and his developer Dr. Carol Christian created it, operation centre for the Hubble Space Telescope add public images from 2007, and color images of all data from Hubbles advanced camera for surveys. There are some new features in Google sky like positions of the major satellites and their orbits and multi wavelength data. In addition, one can see the visible stars, animations, galaxies and constellation on the sky mode.
Google earth is the best tool kit for educators as it provides a lot of information about history, geography, far off cultures and much more. Google sky is the feature in Google earth which teaches students about the astronomy while zooming throughout the space. Students get unique experience as they can view real imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope, which is combined jointly with the imagery of the rest of sky.
Several Google earth files with KML file format are available to help educators with their own lesson plans. You can just find your location in Google earth and then switch to sky option for virtual stargazing. Then the sky above your location will appear as if you are standing in your own backyards. The layers present in it include backyard astronomy, constellation and the planets. Google Earths sky is packed with the stars waiting to get explored. There is also an option of using life of a star layer wherein you can view the lifecycle of the stars from birth to death.
One can also use planet layer to observe the routes of the planets and to display occurrences like retrospective movement. To discover historical information, one can use the time slider in order to find the planets at a given time. One can make use of constellation layer to observe the concept of the ecliptic or can open the KML file to view elements such asteroids, planetary moons and Pluto. We see many of the points of light in the sky which are actually not stars, but the whole galaxies. By using the user’s guide to galaxies you can learn or even turn the Hubble showcase layer to see the detailed space imagery and can zoom an individual star.
As all knows many heavenly things have their roots in mythology and human history. By using planets and constellations layers to see many names of the great people, one can get the information of legendary idols after which they are named. You can see the mythologically relevant names of planetary, Pluto, moons and many more for example planet-moon i.e. Jupiter-Io are mostly representative of the relationship between characters. One can make either use of this tool in two ways by downloading new version of Google earth or can use Google sky directly from your web browser at sky.google.com. There are exceptional eight special contents such as historical sky maps, education center, etc which provides you the content to share information with everyone and current sky events.
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