http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/documents/dswmedia/redirect.html

You need shockwave player to view, but it's worth downloading if you don't already have it.

It's a 3d map of about 100 local star systems... Quite amazing to go through and look at the (limited) details on each star and planet... type, eccentricity of orbit, orbital period, etc.

Play around! You can also look at the solar system, the display is centered on Sol.

Very sweet.

bludy arse biscuits!!

It asked me to install new plugins, searched for them, and it came up with NO PLUGINS FOUND.

I blame Gill Bates.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Cool, I never knew we've discovered so many new planets, and even have the technology to tell what type they are.

Awwwww, YEAH!

yay i got it working.

Its amazing, SO many planets.

We cant see the Earth like planets, cos they're too small.

Most terrain planets will be moons around the multitude of gass Giants.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I recommend Celestia for all your astronomy action needs.

Yay! Balls of gas circling burning balls of gas!

I guess I'm just not an astronomer.

Hey this is cool. It's so small though; it's a blank page with this like 320*240 applet sitting in the middle of it... and yeah, I'm sure I could go to the page source and search for ".swf" and load it on its own page but why should I have to? It just seems silly.

yup that is a cool program. however, dont go downloading Hi-Res images for earth anymore, you should just use google earth for that. Also, be careful, it is very easy for the directory to take up large amounts of space. (I think i had almost .5 gig of space taken up.)

Celestia is sweet, there are some awesome stargazer programs out there... ones you can customize to your location and exact time (not time zone), and see what constellations, stars, nebula, etc etc should be exactly where in the sky for any time, day or night. Swankadelic.