Microsoft has announced that the WorldWide Telescope is now open source under the MIT license and has become an independent project as part of the .NET Foundation.
WorldWide Telescope began in 2007 as a Microsoft Research project, with early partners including astronomers and educators from Caltech, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, the University of Chicago and several NASA facilities.
“Over the past eight years, millions of people have downloaded and used WorldWide Telescope, coming to rely on its unified astronomical image and data environment for exploratory research, teaching and public outreach,” reported in Microsoft Research Connections blog.
WorldWide Telescope was designed with rich interactivity in mind. Guided Tours, which are especially popular among educators and astronomy enthusiasts, offer scripted paths through the 3D environment, enabling users to view and create media-rich interactive stories about anything from star formation to the discovery of the large-scale structure of the universe.
From this year, they decided to make the WorldWide Telescope available under an open source license to allow any individual or organization to adapt and extend the functionality to meet any research or educational need.
DotNet foundation said,
“Today, I am thrilled to announce that the .NET Foundation is working together with Microsoft Research and the WorldWide Telescope project team to set the application itself free. The WorldWide Telescope is an important tool and I’m glad the .NET Foundation can be of help as it begins its journey as an open source application with committers from inside and outside of Microsoft. We’re thrilled to welcome the community of astronomers using and contributing to the WorldWide Telescope into the exciting universe of open source .NET.”
They believe that extensions and improvements to the software will continuously enhance formal and informal learning and astronomical research. Making the code available will also help ensure that the data, protocols and techniques used are also available for others to inspect, use, adapt and improve upon in their own applications. Ultimately, open sourcing WorldWide Telescope will also allow the wider community to guide and participate future in future development efforts such that it evolves to meet the needs of future users.
“As a long-term collaborator, user and proponent of WorldWide Telescope, releasing it as open source is a natural and significant next step for the project. Educators, students and researchers now have the ability to directly influence and contribute to the future development and potential of this unique tool.”
Alyssa Goodman, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
WorldWide Telescope is written in .NET and the code is available now at https://github.com/WorldWideTelescope. This release brings a deep and complex open source .NET project to the astronomical community, while representing a substantial extension of the projects within the .NET Foundation.
