Microsoft's Bing search engine has added some new elements to help others learn more about science. One of them is an interactive simulation of Earth's solar system when the search term "solar system" is used.
Microsoft says that this feature was added due to a request from Bing users:
"We noticed that people were searching for queries related to the Solar System and information around it such as "how far is the sun from the earth?" We also found that many wanted to see the planets in order of distance from the sun, in order of size, and shown at distance to-scale. Now, a search for 'solar system' gets the animated, interactive answer we developed and you get answers to all the above questions. You can hover over individual planets to see their orbits, get details about that planet, and clicking on a planet will take you to the Bing search page for that planet."
Typing in "periodic table" in Bing brings up an interactive version of those elements as well. Microsoft says:
"Each tab on the Bing periodic table paints the table in a different set of colors to show how the elements vary according to their group, physical state, discovery date, predominant location on earth, or density. The physical state has a slider to demonstrate how the elements change with the temperature, while the discovery date slider shows when each element was discovered. On any of these tabs, typing an element name or symbol into the text box at the top of the answer will highlight that element on the periodic table so you can find it quickly."
Bing can also bring up an interactive look at each element on the periodic table, including a look at how many protons and neutrons are in each element's nucleus.
