SFGate.com: Micosoft has launch a competitor to google sky, the popular software program that lets computer users fly through the universe, viewing stars, planets and celestial bodies. The new product is called Worldwide Telescope.

The virtual service combines images and databases from every major telescope and astronomical organization in the world.

Microsoft says it is providing the resource for free in memory of Jim Gray, the Microsoft researcher who disappeared last year while sailing his boat to the Farallon Islands on a trip to scatter his mother's ashes. The project is an extension of Gray's work.

"I never imagined (the telescope) would be so beautiful," said Alexander Szalay, an astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins University who worked with Gray on astronomy projects for more than a decade.

Gray was an expert in databases, and he came to be accepted as "a card-carrying member" of the astronomical community for his work in bringing astronomical data online, Szalay said.

A special version of the product is being developed for astronomers, and it's being considered as one way to visualize data in the Virtual Observatory, a project by the National Science Foundation to integrate all astronomical data online.

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