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Recomputing the Sky

Posted by kdawson on from the magic-glasses dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has unveiled the largest and clearest image of the night sky ever assembled. This so-called 'TeraPixel' sky map was generated with the help of some of Microsoft's latest HPC and parallel software assets. Quoting: 'Compared to the old sky image, the TeraPixel version is much more refined. With all the artifacts, seams and inconsistencies processed away, it looks like a true unified image of the sky above. It's like going from Super Mario Brothers on 1985-era Nintendo consoles to Halo 2 on Xbox 360s.'" You can view the image at Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope site — it requires the Silverlight plugin for Windows or Mac. No word at the site about Linux or whether Moonlight works there.

1 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Beware... by openfrog · · Score: 1, Troll

    'Compared to the old sky image, the TeraPixel version is much more refined.

    This makes one remind of an old practice of theirs: Embrace, Extend and Extinguish...

    Scary!

    Is the project set to be completed in 2012, by any chance?