The view from the Sky

Posted by Sally Ride, Ph.D., former astronaut

It's true: astronauts have a great view! When I was orbiting Earth in the space shuttle, I had the unbelievable experience of being able to float over to a window and look back down at our planet, then off into space at the stars. Absolutely spectacular!

These days my feet are closer to the ground, and my mission doesn't involve circling the Earth. I run a science education company, Sally Ride Science, that creates entertaining science materials for elementary and middle school students and classrooms, so I'm always looking for cool tools that can engage kids and help them learn more about our world. Sky in Google Earth is great, and we plan on using it in some of our programs. (Read more on the Google Lat Long blog.)

As you can probably tell from the video I did on Sky with a Google engineer, I always loved astronomy. I even put together (OK, with the help of some folks at Sally Ride Science and Google) a special KML showcase of some of my favorite extra-solar places -- nebulae where stars are born, remnants of exploding stars, and even a bunch of stars that have ... planets orbiting around them! (No, scientists haven't found any like Earth yet.)

If you know any kids or teachers who like astronomy, send them to Sky (the resource page is a good start) -- and tell them to check out the Sally Ride Science KML feature.