Google Earth has become a staple of its Maps product, with developments and updates coming out on a regular basis. The project has grown to include Google Mars, Google Sky, and Google Moon, and just as Google Earth went from a downloadable application to a web-accessible visual tool, so too will Google Sky, which used to be solely a portion of the Google Earth application. And Google won't let a little lawsuit stop it from developing its Google Sky efforts.
There's now a web-based version of Google Sky, which doesn't require a download and can be accessed directly through your browser window. There are a few new exploration features that come with the web-based version of Google Sky, including a search tool for browsing named objects in the sky, multiple optical sky surveys for switching views, and galleries that display images from Hubble and other telescopes.