Maybe you need to know how the morning sky will look from the third moon of Jupiter in 2121 for a sci-fi story you are writing. Or perhaps you want to use a sky chart from the day your baby was born as part of a birth announcement.
You might want to try your hand at creating a planet from scratch, changing the chemicals in the ground and the air to see what kinds of life emerge. Or, on a no-Bulls-game night, you could follow one of the most fascinating minds of our time, Stephen Hawkings, into his understanding of black holes.
Whatever your reason for an interest in astronomy, there are CD-ROMs that present information in highly entertaining and accessible forms that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
The first major breakthrough in astronomy CD-ROMs came in 1993, when the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the U.S. and many of Russia’s top space scientists collaborated to provide the information for the first edition of RedShift, updated a few months ago to RedShift2.
The second breakthrough came when information about deep space and the origin of the universe obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope, finally fitted with corrective eyeware to clear its distorted vision, was included in the most recent astronomy CD-ROMs.
The following astronomy programs have more adventures and information than can be discovered in one sitting or described here. All are available in versions that will run on PC machines or Macintosh except “Distant Suns/First Light,” which is available only for PCs.
“RedShift 2,” Maris Multimedia ($54.95): Perhaps the most complete of the pure astronomy programs, “RedShift2” has an amazing array of self-directed adventures. You can sit on the Levy-Shoemaker comet that plunged into Jupiter and ride it into the giant planet and out the other side. Or you can watch the show from Earth or from one of Jupiter’s moons.
The program starts with a horizon shot of the night sky. You can chose the location, year and direction. Looking at the sky, you can click on any of the dots you see and get the size, location and light-years from Earth of the object — planet, moon, star or asteroid. “RedShift 2” also will calculate and print out the motion of the major sky objects.
The Sun and many of the planets have photos, videos, guided tours and tutorials. An amazing view of sun spots and an animated film of the Sun’s core are among the 30 minutes of movie-quality animation and 500 full-screen photographs in “RedShift2.”
“SkyGazer, Guide to the Heavens,” Carina Software ($79.50): For ease of use and some fun features like the ability to print out the night sky the day you were born, with figures such as Little Bear, Great Bear, the Herdsman and Orion outlined, this CD-ROM would be hard to beat.
And viewing two of the animated sequences included, I think I may finally understand how the rotation of the Earth and its revolution around the Sun create day and night and the seasons.
“SkyGazer” has closeup views of planets from NASA space probes and the Hubble Space Telescope, animations of eclipses and meteor showers, and movies that show the changing patterns of constellations.
One of the niftiest features is a computer clock that let you set the time running at any point in space and watch paths of planets or changing positions of constellations day to day or century to century.
Either “RedShift2” or “SkyGazer” will meet most family’s astronomy needs.
“Voyager II,” Carina Software ($159.50): For anyone who has more than a general interest in astronomy, such as high-school science teachers or astronomy majors, this would be the program to buy. It is used in many colleges and universities and includes a guide to using the CD-ROM’s Dynamic Sky Simulator with appendices and a glossary that can serve as an introductory astronomy course. It is fast, comprehensive and up to date. You can view ancient-to-modern celestial phe-
nomena from anywhere in the solar system.
“A Brief History of Time,” Crunch Media, Scientific American and W.H. Freeman and Co. ($49.95): For a completely different astronomy experience that delves into the surreal and has some of the most stunning graphics around, this CD-ROM of Stephen Hawking’s best-selling book on the mysteries of space and time is a must.
Hawkings, the theoretical physicist whose physical ailments have confined him to a wheelchair and forced him to “speak” through a computer that vocalizes his typing, is your host. In his office you can click on hot spots to take you on a spaceship ride through a black hole or take a walk down Relativity Street, where a ping-pong game shows you there is no absolute state of rest.
An in-depth look at the life of Albert Einstein presents new dimensions to the genius most people know from his hair or famous equation. But there is more. In Einstein’s words, his life was “divided between politics and equations,” as full of anti-nuclear-war efforts and Zionism as science.
“Politics is for the present,” Einstein is quoted as saying. “An equation is something for eternity.”
What you would expect to be a dry tome is packed with humor, special effects and animation that make you believe you really may have grasped the Big Bang theory.
And don’t miss Marilyn Monroe’s seductive explanation of relativity.
“Americans in Space,” Multicom ($19.95): From the time Neal Armstrong first walked on the moon through the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, this program provides videos, full-screen photos, stats and descriptions of projects and missions.
You can listen to the actual Mission Control conversations during the tragic 1986 Challenger explosion, see the Hubble as its solar panels were being unfurled or enjoy magnificent views of Florida from space. The roar of the shuttle taking off is unforgettable.
“The Planets,” Byron Preiss Multimedia Co. ($54.95): For the best tour of the planets, this CD-ROM of Scientific American Library’s book, “Exploring Planetary Worlds,” is the one to buy. It has taken every available piece of information, photograph or video from all the space probes ever launched, added the incredible images captured by the Hubble telescope, and created three-dimensional still shots and movies of all of the planets and many of their moons.
Venus, Mars and Jupiter are the most complete, but you also can get the incredible feeling of isolation on icy, distant Neptune, where the Sun is only a speck in its dark sky, and the wonder of Saturn, with its rings of rock.
The most unusual feature is a program that allows you to create your own planet, altering the temperature, amount of iron in the core and gases in the atmosphere. A leading scientist comments on your experiment, pointing out that you have just created a major ice age, or have finally introduced enough moisture into the atmosphere of your fledgling planet to support life. Put it toward the top of your list.
“Vision of Mars,” Virtual Reality Laboratories ($69.95): Later this year, an unmanned Russian flight will take a copy of this CD-ROM and deposit it somewhere on the ancient sands of Mars for future explorers to discover. A project of The Planetary Society, the disc is intended to let future generations of explorers know what humanity has thought of Mars throughout the past four centuries.
There are graphics of the drawings of little green men endemic to pulp science fiction and a recording of H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” which incited panic when it was broadcast over the radio a generation ago. There are children’s drawings of what they think Martian life would be like and more than 76 books, short stories and articles about Mars by authors from 26 nations writing in 17 languages.
“Journey to the Planets,” Multicom ($19.95): This program has some of the best tricks for comparing the sizes and orbits of the moons of planets. There are incredible full-screen photos of Neptune’s Triton from “Voyager II” and real-life pictures of the surface of Mars with a space probe in the foreground. The ice on Mars looks like sparkling snow on rocks.
An amazing video of a crater on Mercury gives insight into what it was like when it was an active planet, with explosions and molten lava. As the fuel in its core ran out, Mercury gradually died into a changeless rock, about 3.5 million years ago. A great flyover of Earth makes you feel like you are soaring over the Alps and across the subcontinent of India.
“Distant Suns/First Light,” Virtual Reality Laboratories Inc. ($65): A good trip to the planets, this CD-ROM lets you view the Milky Way as a three-dimensional model, hover above planets or display the Hubble Guide Star Catalogue’s 16 million stars.
The low flyby of Venus, created from radar data from the space probe Magellan, and the time-lapse photography of Neptune’s Great Dark Spot are stunning. An interactive calendar gives you times of sunrise and sunset for any date.
