Microsoft and NASA announced an alliance to focus the software giant's virtual WorldWide Telescope on space agency images of Mars and other celestial bodies.

NASA and Microsoft will jointly develop a system to make high-resolution images and scientific data from Mars, the moon and elsewhere in the cosmos available for people to "explore" online at worldwidetelescope.org.

"Making NASA's scientific and astronomical data more accessible to the public is a high priority for NASA," said the US space agency's science mission directorate associate administrator Ed Weiler yesterday.