Google Makes Time Travel Possible

At least in their Google Sky Map application that is.  Google is reporting on their mobile blog that they have now added a time travel feature to their star gazing app.  A quote from the Google post:

Have you ever wondered how the sky was back in 1900? How the sky looked when the Apollo 11 moon landing happened? Or what the sky will look like next Thursday night for your planned star-gazing trip?
Today, the new version of Google Sky Map lets you time travel to see the sky at a specific date, past or future. After smooth travel to the desired year, you can fast forward or rewind in various speeds and watch how the sky changes.

This is one of those apps that is a bit niche, but if you live in an area or visit a place that gives you a good view of the night sky, I have found the app to be indispensable. Playing with this new functionality is pretty fun, as you can see the progression or regression of the night sky in a nice smooth presentation. When time traveling, you can also stand still, then tell the app to fast forward or rewind in different increments of time, allowing you to see what either was or will be visible. I found this feature to be totally fascinating, and played with it when I was supposed to be doing other work.

Time travel is an update to the current skymap app, you can download the update in the Market of course. Not mentioned in the blog post, but mentioned on the market update page, multi-touch functionality has been added as well. Use the barcode below to download the app to your handset.