New Astronomy Tool: "Truly Transformative"

Microsoft's Worldwide Telescope is free software that incorporates images from Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center and Spitzer Space Telescope. This software allows users the opportunity to explore and create tours. Below are links for downloading the software, a TED video of the makers explaining the product, and a preview of its features.
WorldWide Telescope

TED | Talks | Roy Gould, Curtis Wong: WorldWide Telescope (video)

PC Pro: News: Microsoft releases Google Sky rival

There are also more complex features allowing users to view the locations of planets in the past, present or future. There's also options to view the universe through different wavelengths of light.

"Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago," says Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

As a rival to Google Sky, Microsoft WorlWide Telescope certainly feels slicker than its counterpart boasting richer graphics and animations, though it lacks the ability for users to quickly add layers of information as they can with Google Sky.