By now, you’ve probably seen the WorldWide Telescope (see it at TED and read Jim Gray’s original paper on the MS Research Site). As the site describes WWT, it “is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground- and space telescopes to enable seamless, guided explorations of the universe.“

The only caveat? It’s a .NET application running on Windows.

Although you could always use Boot Camp (as principal developer Jonathan Fay did when showing off the software), I’m surprised Microsoft didn’t build this in Silverlight and put it on the web, rather than making it a Windows specific application. The Silverlight site claims that it is “delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web“. What better showcase application than the WWT?

Oh well, I guess the mysteries of the night sky will only be unlocked for those running on Windows. For now…

Update: Google Sky is now available in your browser.