Google's a big fan of the open sky, especially when awesome things are happening in it. A Google Doodle, as well as two heaping scoops fulls of other access points from Google, give users the opportunity to check out today's lunar eclipse.
The Lunar Eclipse Google Doodle
Live from Google's home page, users can see a Google logo that illustrates the current position of the total lunar eclipse (taking place from 11:20 a.m. PT and lasting for over an hour). While users in select portions of Europe, Australia, Africa, South America, and Asia can see the eclipse for themselves, the doodle allows anyone the whole world round to check out the current status.
The slider on the doodle itself lets users check out the various states that the eclipse was in earlier in the day. Google is also showing a special box on the search results page after you click on the logo, telling you that the eclipse is in progress and where it can be viewed from.
This is just one more of many animated doodles introduced in the last two years, demonstrating the search giant's increasing ambition in this minor feature. It's expected that the doodle will be available for all of today and will become accessible in archived format in the near future.
Other Google Lunar Coverage
The doodle isn't the only way that users can use Google to keep track of the lunar eclipse. Here are Google's other resources on this topic:
- Thanks to a partnership with the Slooh Space Camera, users can check out an interface that gives footage, commentary, and community discussion.
- Slooh Space Camera also has an Android app that provides images on the eclipse.
- Users can watch a live stream and some condensed videos of the eclipse on the Google YouTube page.
- This freshly released Google Earth KML adds the eclipse to the "sky" layer of Earth.
They said in the old days that the moon drove people crazy, and that lunar eclipses were auspicious signs. Well, at the very least, Google is enjoying the astronomical beauty of the rare event. Whether their efforts have reached the point of insanity or not is for you to decide.
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