Have you ever wondered what lies just beyond the stratosphere, or better yet the atmosphere?  Wonder no longer.  Microsoft officially unveiled their telescope service today: Microsoft Worldwide Telescope.  Any web surfer with a decent Internet connection can now explore the nether regions of space all from your living room.  The service combines 12 terabytes of data and includes 50 surveys, 1,000 high-resolution studies, and links to astronomy research on the web.  What you’ll actually be viewing are photos captured from a variety of telescopes: the Hubble Telescope which is high in the sky, and the Cerror Tololo Observatory, which is just north of Santiago, Chile.

To check it out go here (you’ll need to download a file and it’s not compatible with OS X).

Official press release here.