Google Aims For the Stars With 'Sky'

Google turned its eyes to the stars on Wednesday, introducing Sky, its complement to the Google Earth ground mapping product. The new feature, to be made available in 13 languages, will allow the navigation of the 100 million known stars and 200 million known galaxies through the application's interface. The search company has provided a YouTube video to help users get started with the application.

To help promote the new feature, the company invited former astronaut Sally Ride to promote it in the company's official blog. As part of the promotion, Ride developed a KML showcase featuring her favorite extra-solar places. "Sky in Google Earth is great, and we plan on using it in some of our programs," she said. Ride now runs Sally Ride Science, a company that specializes in creating science materials for elementary and middle school students.