Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope will light your fuse

— -- Microsoft wants you to boldly go where you have never gone before — right from your PC desktop. The vehicle is the WorldWide Telescope, a breathtaking educational resource that turns your Windows computer into a virtual observatory of space.

The free application combines downloadable software and Web 2.0 smarts. It seamlessly weaves together 12 terabytes of data and gorgeous imagery from the world's finest telescopes — the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory Center, Spitzer Space Telescope and more. You're left with a remarkable window into space.

We've all seen pretty pictures of the planets and the stars. But WorldWide Telescope gives you proportion and perspective. You come to grasp the relative size, scale and sheer vastness of celestial outposts as you rocket, say, from Mercury to Uranus. You can also peer at our own planet using imagery from Microsoft's Virtual Earth program. It's all very addictive.

You can explore space on your own terms, using the mouse and/or keyboard to fluidly zoom in and pan the nighttime sky. Or let expert astronomers and scientists take you on excellent interactive narrated tours.

You'll need a robust computer with Windows Vista or XP to explore the cosmos this way. Google Sky, a roughly similar offering, works with Macs. But Microsoft does a superior job of making you feel like you're catching a cab through the universe.

I'm tempted to ask: If Microsoft can send you to the moon, why can't it fix Vista?

All kidding aside, WorldWide Telescope makes stunning use of technology, what Microsoft calls the Visual Experience Engine. Still, the interface is a little daunting, and I sometimes got lost in space.

Plus, in my tests I had a close encounter with a baffling software message: "Unhandled exception has occurred in a component in your application." The Microsoft equivalent, I suppose, of a black hole.

But Microsoft's mission is indeed worth lauding as an entertaining tool to teach astronomy to kids of all ages. It's thrilling as you zoom toward Saturn or Neptune to see these planets suddenly emerge into your field of vision out of the vast emptiness of space.