San Francisco — Internet search engine behemoth Google over the weekend announced that it is forging an alliance with Slooh, in an attempt to offer live space exploration service to Google Earth by way of a new “map the universe” layer. As part of the association, many of the images captured with Slooh until now will be available in Google Earth as well as a dedicated layer in Sky.
The companies last week rolled out new feature that consolidates Slooh’s Space Camera technology and its worldwide network of robotic mountaintop telescopes, which empowers Google Earth users to explore outer space in real-time and take part of mapping the universe.
“We are excited to announce this integration with Google Earth, which fulfills our mission to promote scientific enlightenment and reconnect people with the natural world around them,” Slooh founder Michael Paolucci said in a press release. “Sharing the view through a live telescope is a powerful experience, one we are pleased to now share with Google’s worldwide audience.”
Slooh is an online Space Camera that transmits live views from robotic telescopes mounted in the Canary Islands, Chile and Australia. Slooh takes users on five-minute expeditions that produce celestial images resembling those from a Polaroid camera.
“Slooh’s ‘map the universe’ layer delivers an impressive educational component to Google Earth,” Noel Gorelick, Skyls technical lead in Google Earth, said in a statement. “Not only does the ability to explore space live bring a totally new active dimension to the experience, but also gives Google users a deeper awareness of the positions of a myriad of celestial objects and the birth of galaxies in our solar system.”
“Sharing a joint mission to map the universe, a live astronomy feature that delivers the power of live space exploration to Google’s global audience,” Slooh said.
Google added the Google Sky layer to Google Earth in 2007, which enabled users to explore space’s celestial bodies from within the program. Slooh now adds another layer to Google Sky. Even more interesting, all Google Earth users will be able to join some of the missions which will be broadcast live.
According to Slooh, Google Earth will also play host to Slooh’s live astronomy missions, offering live feeds of celestial events (like lunar eclipses, alien invasions, etc) with an enhanced audio narration by Bob Berman and an additional Slooh host. The first such public mission will be a lunar eclipse on December 21.
“Since 2004, Slooh has furnished live telecasts of many essential celestial events, including eclipses, transits, comets, and supernova discoveries, including its October 2009 coverage of NASA’s LCROSS crash of a space ship into the Moon,” the company said in a statement.
The deal also enabled Google to add approximately 35,000 existing images from Slooh into Google Earth Sky. New images taken by Slooh users will be added to the dedicated layer.
All of these images will be available to all Google Earth users. However, the only snag to its Google Earth integration is that users will need to have a membership to actually manipulate the cameras, they will be able to join existing missions or take photos themselves, label them and then upload them to Google Earth for everyone to see.
And those without a membership will only be allowed to view images accumulated by the Space Camera. Budding astronomers can sign up for a membership by heading here. A monthly membership costs $5.95 USD–$29.95 for six months and $49.95 for twelve months.
The move should prove mutually beneficial for both companies. On the one hand, Google gets to add more content to Sky and a couple of new interesting features for users, not the least of which are the live events.
Slooh, on the other hand, gets to expose its products to a potentially huge market and one that may already be at least marginally interested in astronomy. Slooh also offers “Space Camera Launch Cards” for $9.99 at RadioShack and Toys ‘R’ Us, which let kids initiate their own Web-based missions to outer space.
View more images here.