  The WorldWide Telescope computer program, released to researchers and the
public as a free resource in 2008 by Microsoft Research, has changed the way
the ever-growing Universe of online astronomical data is viewed and understood.
The WWT program can be thought of as a scriptable, interactive, richly visual
browser of the multi-wavelength Sky as we see it from Earth, and of the
Universe as we would travel within it. In its web API format, WWT is being used
as a service to display professional research data. In its desktop format, WWT
works in concert (thanks to SAMP and other IVOA standards) with more
traditional research applications such as ds9, Aladin and TOPCAT. The WWT
Ambassadors Program (founded in 2009) recruits and trains
astrophysically-literate volunteers (including retirees) who use WWT as a
teaching tool in online, classroom, and informal educational settings. Early
quantitative studies of WWTA indicate that student experiences with WWT enhance
science learning dramatically. Thanks to the wealth of data it can access, and
the growing number of services to which it connects, WWT is now a key linking
technology in the Seamless Astronomy environment we seek to offer researchers,
teachers, and students alike.
