Know more about Universe | Explore Space with 'Google Sky' | Images and details of Planets, Galaxy and more

Traveling to the Space, Galaxies, stars has never been easier. To help you explore the far reaches of our universe, Google have teamed up with astronomers at some of the largest observatories in the world to bring you a new view of the sky. Using Google Maps this tool provides an exciting way to browse and explore the universe. You can find the positions of the planets and constellations on the sky and even watching the birth of distant galaxies as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. It provides you the ability to view the universe at different wavelengths, to see how it would look if our eyes worked in the x-rays or infrared. As you explore these new layers, play with the transparency to blend between the different wavelengths and see how different parts of the universe light up at different wavelengths

If you are interested in what's happening on the sky tonight or over the next few months then check out the podcasts from Earth and Sky or search for the position of your favorite planet.

Google Sky

The tool is Google Sky which provides a number of different ways to explore the universe. The initial view shows the visible universe and is a mosaic of images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Digitized Sky Survey and the Hubble Space Telescope. Select the thumbnail images at the bottom of the display to bring up the planets, the constellations, highlights from the Hubble Space Telescope, famous stars, galaxies and nebulae, views of the universe in the x-ray, ultraviolet and infrared and podcasts about upcoming astronomical events from Earth and Sky Podcasts. Other items available through Google Sky:

➣ Infrared - An infrared view of the sky from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). Change the transparency of this layer by moving the slide bar to blend the optical and infrared.

➣ Microwave - A view of the microwave sky from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which shows the universe as it was 380,000 years after the big bang.

➣ Historical - The sky as drawn by Giovanni Maria Cassini (printed in 1792) showing the constellations in their classical form from the collections of David Rumsey.

Space Cloud

You can type the name of the planet, star or galaxy that you are looking for in the search box and Google Sky takes you to where it can be found on the sky. Alternatively, if you click on the "Our Solar System" icon on the initial view, thumbnails of prominent solar system objects appear. Clicking one of these thumbnails will take you to the current location of that planet on the sky. The imagery for Google Sky comes from some of the largest ground- and space-based astronomical surveys.

Visit ➡   Google Sky

The imagery in Google Sky is available in the same way as Google Maps. You can embed your own view of the sky on any webpage and customize the view to show your favorite aspect of astronomy.