telegraph.co.uk/news/main.j...sky122.xml

By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
Last Updated: 8:39pm BST 22/08/2007

The world's largest search engine has opened up the skies for internet surfers with a passion for astronomy.

Google Earth, a free piece of software downloaded from the web, already allows people to soar over major tourist spots around the world.

But with the new service - known as Sky - they can now fly through space, visiting more than 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies created from thousands of satellite photographs.

With a single click of the mouse, users can choose a part of the world, and discover exactly what celestial bodies exist above it.

The more they zoom in the more detailed the imagery becomes.

To learn more about what they see, users can click on the star, constellation or galaxy, and a detailed description will appear on their screen.