Google Goes Lunar, Literally

As Tonic.com's Steve Tanner blogged last week, Google has gone to the moon. Is there anywhere left now for the search titan to travel one has to wonder?

Google's formal debut today of "Moon in Google Earth" was announced by a special blogger Anousheh Ansari, trustee of the X PRIZE Foundation and first female private space explorer, who shared her love of space exploration and who describes her current mission as helping others "think ambitiously about ways to push the boundaries of exploration, both here on Earth and beyond."

Moon in Google Earth (all you need to do is use the "moon" tab in the Google Earth toolbar) lets users explore lunar views and tap interesting content from landing sites of Apollo missions to 'flying' to Mars. As Ansari writes, the new software makes it seem as if outer space isn't as far away as it once was..

According to the blog post the effort was a collaboration with NASA and Japan's space agency, Jaxa.