A few days ago, Microsoft Research released their WorldWide Telescope, a desktop application that lets anybody explore around the universe through telescopes. Google took a step like this before, with Google Sky, a feature recently added to Google Earth. Though Google Sky is a lot friendlier, Microsoft’s WorldWide Telescope sure beats it with its impressive views and wide options.

The software has a wide set of options for navigation. You can move around by simply dragging the mouse over the screen, zooming in and out using your mouse and using a set of collections that group telescope destinations such as planets, moons, constellations and stars. These are like catalogs of the most interesting places to see. “My Collections” lets you save your favorite places of the universe so you can visit them later.

The most interesting feature is the “Guided Tours”. Out of over 30 tours prepared by experts or users, you can pick a tour, sit back and enjoy travelling through galaxies. The tour is like a flash demo with text and voice/music. You can also create your “own tour” by easily adding pictures of the places you visit to a timeline. You can add text, images, shapes and even a soundtrack or voice to your tour to enhance it. After that you can upload your tour and share it with the world.

The software is downloadable for free. Be careful though as the system requirements are relatively high. You can check them out at the download page and download the software for some excitement around the universe.