Use Google Earth as Your Virtual Telescope

If you have been using Google Earth to simply span the globe...think about spanning the sky. Google Earth has a feature that lets you switch to viewing the sky from earth, turning your window into a virtual telescope. Google Earth has also incorporated some fantastic layers. I really enjoyed the "Life of a Star" layer. This shows you actual stages of a star's life and explains that particular stage. It is really cool.

What a great way for students to learn about stars. Just open Google Earth and click on the "Switch between sky and earth" button.
This will give you a view of the sky above the location you were viewing in Google Earth and it will give you a different set of layers. I double-clicked on the "Life of a Star" layer to get my lesson started.
This is just one of the thousands of uses for Google Earth. You can use Google Earth for history, math, science and more. For more new features in Google Earth, check out the latest edition of their online newsletter, Sightseer.