Small items appeared in The New York Times and CNN last week reporting that Google has signed on to help 19 universities and laboratories with an ambitious telescope project in Chile. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will have a 27.5-foot diameter and will produce 200 terabytes worth of images each week.

Instead of financing the project, as you might expect, Google will be help the scientists organize data. The search-engine giant is also reportedly going to make that information "accessible." Might that mean Google will make the images public via "Google Solar System?" After all, the company already has (very limited) online maps of Mars and the moon. Google reps did not respond to interview requests, but we're crossing our fingers anyway. The telescope should be completed by 2013.
— S.E. Kramer

Via The New York Times and CNN