Google’s 100,000 Stars Chrome App

Google launched a new experiment that it has designated the 100,000 Stars Chrome App.  Its purpose seems to be to let you know how small you really are with a look at the stars that are only a few light years away.  You will see amazing sights like you’ve never seen them before.

You can use either your mouse or keypad to zoom in or out across the sky.  When you zoom in, you get to find out the names of the stars where you can click on them and learn more about each one.  You can also zoom out and see the Milky Way and get a glimpse of just a small part of what is out in space.

The Google app works well on either Firefox or Chrome where you will begin at the sun with soothing music playing in the background.  However, you can turn it off if you prefer your own background or the silence.

The app includes a button that gives you a guided tour of our universe, but you can also browse on your own.  You can rotate the view and fly around as you zoom in on your favorite stars.  A fun feature on Google’s 100,000 stars Chrome app is that you can click on a graph icon right next to the tour.  It is titled Toggle spectral index and it will replace every star by a colored square.  These colors represent the actual color of the stars, hence the name spectral index.

Some of the lighter stars are not labelled and you can’t automatically reposition from the sun.  Other well-known stars were missing such as Sirius and Wolf 359.  While there are a few improvements that can be made with this app, overall it is a pretty cool way to spend some time on your computer.  Amateur astronomers and sci-fi fans will enjoy what it has to offer.

[Image via internet-end]