World Wide Telescope News |
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Information about Harvard and the World Wide TelescopeResearchers
and educators at Harvard have been excited to be partnering on many aspects
of WWT with
Microsoft. Alyssa Goodman, Professor of Astronomy at
the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics, and Founding Director of Harvard's Initiative in
Innovative Computing, was so inspired by Curtis Wong's early
description of the WWT concept that she has become a day-to-day consultant to
the project. In addition to consulting on WWT features and data sets, Goodman
has created a tour called "Dust & Us" that gives a new perspective
on how important dust, which we normally think of as a nuisance, is to creating
planets like the one upon which we live. Goodman, Wong, and MSR NextMedia
Group's WWT lead developer Jonathan Fay are also partnering
with WGBH to integrate WWT seamlessly with a variety of media (including video)
over the coming year. (Sample WGBH/NOVA
links for Dust & Us Tour are online now.) Roy
Gould, a noted education researcher in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics' Science Education group, has been working with Wong to hone the
WWT's educational approach. Just how thrilled Gould is with WWT's educational
potential is well-evidenced by his ebullient presentation of WWT
earlier this year at the TED conference. Together, Wong, Goodman and
Gould have spent many hours discussing how WWT puts data back into their
natural context, which allows students, amateurs, and professional astronomers
alike to make sense of the Universe in so many new ways. Goodman and her
research colleagues at Harvard are very excited about the potential WWT holds
for the professional community as a so-called "Virtual Observatory"
tool, and she is taking a sabbatical next year to focus on that potential.
Gould is already making plans to integrate WWT into upcoming museum exhibits,
including one on Black Holes. Other scientists and educators at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Initiative in Innovative Computing who are especially familiar and/or involved with the World Wide Telescope project include Gus Muench, Pepi Fabbiano, Martin Elvis, Michelle Borkin, Eli Bressert, Douglas Finkbeiner, Robert Kirshner, Megan Watzke, and Kimberly Kowal Arcand. Link to NECN Video Interview about The WWTAlyssa Goodman talks about WWT on ABC News Screenshot of Alyssa Goodman's Dust and Us WWT Tour www.pbs.org/nova/wwt/dust.html |