Journey Into Cosmos Via ‘Nine Worlds’ CD

I’m doing quite a bit of traveling this summer and, thanks to an interesting new CD, I even got to visit Jupiter, Venus, Uranus and the six other planets of our solar system.

“Nine Worlds” ($39.95), a Windows and Macintosh CD-ROM from Palladium Interactive ([415] 464-5500), takes you on a multimedia tour of our solar system. Hosted by actor Patrick Stewart (Capt. Jean-Luc Picard on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”), it goes where lots of other computer programs have gone before. But with this CD, you travel in style and get to take side trips into cyberspace through an online component that links the CD to the World Wide Web and Internet discussion groups.

Unlike some other astronomy programs, “Nine Worlds,” which is based on a video of the same name, doesn’t inundate you with technical trivia or detailed maps of the heavens. Instead, it provides you with an audio and video tour of each planet, including lots of photos from satellites, telescopes and various space probes, all set to background music from “The Planets” by Gustav Holtz.

The CD is divided into three major sections: the planets, resource explorer and mankind’s view. The planets section allows you to explore each planet separately: You can watch a video (narrated by Stewart) and explore details about each planet and its moons.

You can also use the “vacation planner,” which lets you play interplanetary tourist. This rather wacky portion of the program provides information on the planet’s weather and lets you determine how long it would take to get to your destination planet and what you’d weigh once you landed. (A 150-pound Earthling would weigh 381 pounds on Jupiter.)

My favorite portion of the CD was the mankind’s view section. Divided into nine time periods, it explores our view of space starting with the ancients. It’s really a history of astronomy with glimpses of the role of key players such as Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Hale and others. This section also examines the “age of exploration,” including the moon race, Viking, Voyager, the Hubble Space Telescope and mankind’s future in space.

Finally, there is the resource explorer, which includes information on organizations, planetariums, publications and other resources, as well as links to space-related newsgroups (Internet discussion areas) and sites on the World Wide Web.

The Internet connection is probably the most interesting aspect of this CD. It comes with the SpryNet Internet browser for accessing the World Wide Web, and it also works with Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Explorer. The current Mac version doesn’t have a browser or an Internet connection, though the company is about to release a new version for both Mac and PC that comes with Netscape for Mac and Windows 95 as well as a Windows 3.1 browser.

At various places on the CD, you will see a “NetProbe” icon. If you click on it, the program will remember what was on the screen at the time and, when you go online, will take you to the appropriate Internet sites related to the subject areas in which you expressed interest.

The online component of the program blends the benefits of a multimedia CD-ROM with the extensibility of the Internet. Although it’s possible to get sound and video over the Internet, the connection speed, for the vast majority of users, is far too slow to readily deliver quality audio and video. CDs can do that easily--but once a CD is pressed, its content is final. It can’t be up-to-the-minute, nor can it let you interact with other people.

When you decide to go online, you select “online launch” from the CD’s resource explorer, and the program automatically launches your World Wide Web browser and takes you directly to Palladium Interactive’s proprietary Web site, which can only be accessed while the CD is running. I tried going to the site when the CD wasn’t playing and it wouldn’t let me in. To use this feature, you need to access the Internet through an Internet service provider. It won’t work with America Online or Prodigy.

In addition to giving you a guided tour based on what you specified using the NetProbe, the site provides links to “stellar sites,” which include newsgroups and lots of public Web sites. There are links to collections of space-related shareware programs, images and video clips.

One particularly interesting area of the site takes you to various chat rooms, where you can enter live discussions related to astronomy, extraterrestrial beings, rockets, science fiction and other subjects. You’ll need special chat software that you can download from Palladium’s Web site. Of course, you don’t need to buy this program to access space-related sites. NASA (https://www.nasa.gov/) has a great site and Yahoo (https://www.yahoo.com/Science/Astronomy/) has links to numerous space-related sites. The Nine Planets: A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System (https://www.aber.ac.uk/~btk/nineplanets/) is an excellent site.

“Nine Worlds” is not designed to help you plot out objects in space. There are a number of programs on the market, including “Easy Cosmos,” “Dance of the Planets” and “Red Shift II,” that let you enter your location, time and date to draw maps to the stars and planets. The “Nine Worlds” CD, however, does come with a number of shareware programs for both the Mac and PC that do provide star- and planet-mapping capabilities.

Lawrence J. Magid can be reached via e-mail at magid@latimes.com. His World Wide Web page is at https://www.larrysworld.com