As the saying goes: everything is bigger in Texas. And coming this weekend, March 8 to 10, there will be a couple of Texas-sized telescopes at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival (opens in new tab) in Austin. Housed in the mammoth NASA Experience Tent, a wall-sized display will show off Microsoft Research’s WorldWide Telescope (WWT) (opens in new tab), demonstrating the amazing capabilities of the world’s largest virtual telescope. Outside, on the lawn of the Long Center, there will be a full-scale model of the next generation of the Hubble Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) (opens in new tab)—a truly impressive piece of engineering that’s the size of a tennis court.
Microsoft Research is partnering with NASA (opens in new tab), Northrop Grumman (opens in new tab), and the Space Telescope Science Institute (opens in new tab) to offer a truly interactive exhibit (opens in new tab), with University of Texas, Austin, astronomy students on hand to show off details of the JWST model on Microsoft Surface devices. Meanwhile, WWT will provide festival goers with an immersive virtual experience as they fly through the universe and explore the planets and stars. As you may know, the WWT brings together imagery from the world’s best ground and space-based telescopes and combines it with 3-D navigation. It also includes guided tours of interesting places in the sky, created and narrated by astronomers and educators.
WorldWide Telescope Experience
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In addition to the huge WorldWide Telescope display, Microsoft Perceptive Pixel (opens in new tab) stations will be accessible, enabling visitors to explore space, Earth, and history—all at their fingertips. By using Microsoft Research ChronoZoom (opens in new tab), a candidate for a 2013 SXSW Interactive Award, visitors will be able to explore all of history—from the Big Bang to today—and see connections that cut across disciplines and cultures. Prominent participants at SXSW Interactive will include Microsoft researchers, such as Jonathan Fay, who will deliver daily talks on the WWT and participate in the panel session, “Beyond Hubble: NASA’s Next Great Telescope (JWST) (opens in new tab).”
James Webb Space Telescope
Another of my Microsoft Researcher colleagues, Donald Brinkman, will take part in the “Big Heritage, Big Quilts, and Big Canvases (opens in new tab)” panel discussion on the use of applications to visualize works of cultural significance. Donald’s panel will feature demos of applications built on Microsoft Pixelsense (opens in new tab) and Surface devices that provide both scholars and the public with an intimate and interactive experience of cultural touchstones, such as AIDS Memorial Quilt (opens in new tab), the largest community-created piece of folk art in the world.
In addition to the schedule of great talks, we will also be using Skype to broadcast live daily from the NASA clean room at Goddard Space Center for audience Q&A.
We look forward to seeing you in Texas for truly unique and interactive experience.
—Dan Fay (opens in new tab), Director of Earth, Energy, and Environment; Microsoft Research Connections
Learn More
- WorldWide Telescope (opens in new tab)
- Microsoft Perceptive Pixel (opens in new tab)
- ChronoZoom (opens in new tab)
- AIDS Memorial Quilt (opens in new tab)
- Blog: A Time(line) for Reflection (opens in new tab)
- Video: AIDS Memorial Quilt Interactive Exhibit (opens in new tab)
- Earth, Energy, and Environment at Microsoft Research Connections (opens in new tab)