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So the great Mr Scoble has come clean as to what he saw at Microsoft that made him cry. It was a “World Wide Telescope”. What’s so special about that I ask myself. Well Robert fills us in .. 

But it has one difference between any telescope you’ve ever looked at.You can zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.We picked a point of light inside the big dipper. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. Holy shit, it’s two galaxies colliding. It looked like a star. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.Now the magic happened.Curtis Wong said: “let’s switch to a different telescope and see what these two galaxies colliding are spitting out.”He clicked a button and we saw a completely different view of the same colliding galaxies. This time we weren’t looking at visible light, but at something else. I think it might have been infrared, or maybe a look at radiation being kicked out. He had about 10 of the world’s telescopes to look at. I forget all the names, but that detail is in the video coming on Monday.Zoom out. Zoom out. Zoom out. Zoom out. Pan over to Mars. What a glorious view. You’ve never seen Mars like that through your $2,000 Celestron Telescope.   

  OK my eyes are welling up a tad. But there’s more …. 

So, why cry over a telescope?Because I just saw the world I live in, er, excuse me, the universe I live in in a new way that I never had imagined before.I cried because I imagined all the kids, like my sons, who will be inspired by what they see. It took me back to the days when John Kennedy wanted us to go to the moon. Hint: there’s a lot more out there to explore.I cried because I realized just how much work, money, and all that went into making these images. I never had access to them before. Certainly not in this way so I could compare them by clicking a button. As a taxpayer who’s helped pay for some of these telescopes it’s the first time I’ve seen the results of my and your, investments in our scientific research.It’s human to look out at the sky and wonder what’s going on out there. This takes us a LOT further into our understanding of just what is.And,, yes, that’s worth crying some inspirational tears. Thank you to Microsoft Research for inspiring me in a way that Microsoft hasn’t inspired me in years.    

I guess you had to be there.