July 9th, 2009
What planet is that? Ask Wolfram Alpha
My youngest son often asks whether a particular object in the sky is a planet or a star. If it’s a planet, of course, he wants to know which planet. Some of them I can pick out. Venus isn’t usually rocket science (no pun intended). Mercury can be a little tougher. Fortunately, I stumbled across a video blog from Wolfram Alpha yesterday that describes their efforts specifically in the field of astronomy.
Can you imagine what a search for “planets” would give you on Google? The same search on Alpha was downloadable as this PDF. A search for “big dipper” was equally useful and, like all Alpha searches, provided bibliographic references as well.
Alpha certainly takes some getting used to. A search for “what planets can I see at 10:00pm in the United States” yielded nothing, while the same search on Google brought me to hubblesite.org with a Flash animation of objects visible in the night sky (true, the link was outdated, showing me January’s sky, but a bit of looking on Hubblesite led me to the July version).
Learning curve and limitations aside, Alpha continues to impress with the concise way in which it returns useful information.
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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