What Google Earth did for teaching World Geography, Google Sky can do for teaching about the universe around us. ARS Technica reports Google has added to Google Earth a view of over 200 million galaxies and 100 million stars that can be explored with the click of a mouse. Google is using material from the Space Telescope Science Institute, the Digital Sky Survey Consortium, CalTech's Palomar Observatory, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre, and the Anglo-Australian Observatory to recreate the universe. Some of the other features of Google Sky include searching for a celestial body by name, viewing constellations, accessing Hubble Space Telescope pictures, views of the Moon and planets, a guide to the galaxies, and the life of a star. Science teachers should make great use of this latest offering by Google.

Google launched Sky today, a new feature in Google Earth 4.2 that lets users explore not only our home planet but other galaxies, too.