Sky

I can't believe how hungry I was when I got home today. I didn't do anything except sit in a classroom all day. I don't get it.

Google Earth is a really cool (free!) application I use often to help me plan out my Geocaching outings. I also play around with it for fun to 'visit' the Great Wall of China, the pyramids of Egypt, the Eiffel Tower and cool places like that... Anyway, the Geocaching icons have been pretty wonky since the last upgrade and it was driving me nuts. Just on a whim, I checked to see if there was another upgrade lately that may have fixed the problem. I was happy to see that there was... and not only does it appear that the icon issue has been addressed, but there is a new way-cool Sky feature. At least it's new to me.

I have always had fun trying to find the different constellations in the night sky, but some are really hard to pick out. This new Sky feature maps out all the constellations from a view point of your choosing - I use my backyard :)

It can run a four-month time loop to show how the moon and planets move through an area, it can zoom in on nebulas and clusters and dust clouds and all kinds of other cool stuff. And with a click of the mouse, you can see brilliant pictures from the Hubble with explanations of what you're looking at and are given additional links. It's pretty amazing.

It's stuff like this that continues to amaze me about the internet. When I was growing up, I never had access to such cool, interactive material. I would have been more apt to learn a lot more about a lot more different subjects if I had. Clicking a mouse for the instant gratification of information is a lot more enticing than the thought of trudging to a library full of outdated books. Don't get me wrong, I love to read. But looking up information is different. Applications like Google Earth are just so cool!