To the best of our knowledge, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is the #1 search engine in the entire universe. Therefore, it's appropriate that it should turn its attention to the skies as a likely new market.

To this end, the company has added a cool new feature to Google Earth -- Google Sky. Now you can turn the Google Earth lens outwards and explore the heavens as seen from our planet, 100 million stars and 200 million galaxies all served up in high-resolution images, including some from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The imagery is a compilation of data from many astronomy sources, based on a initiative from University of Washington visiting faculty. In addition to images, the program offers animation showing the near-future celestial mechanics of the moon and solar planets, and click-on information about objects in view.

I have this picture in my mind of an astronaut, on the night before a moon launch, printing out a map of his/her route to the Sea of Tranquility