Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope updated with better views of Mars, night sky

We haven't heard a ton about Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope project since it launched in beta form back in 2008, but the company has been busy working with NASA to improve it since then, and it's now finally showing off the results. That includes a new true-color map of Mars complete with 3D renderings of the planet's surface, and a new and improved spherical view of the night sky that virtually eliminates the seams between images -- it's also, incidentally, the world's largest map of its type, and Microsoft says it would take 50,000 HDTVs to view at full size. Of course, it's still pretty impressive viewed one tiny speck at a time -- hit up the link below to download the Windows application or check out the web-based viewer.