Space Daily - Rancho Palos Verdes,CA,USA Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Exploring The Cosmos With NASA Space Braille

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 29, 2008
Images from NASA telescopes are jewels of the space program, marvelous
to
behold. But how do you behold them when you can't see? The answer lies
between the covers of a new NASA-funded book written in Braille, Touch
the
Invisible Sky. In an inspiring forward to the volume, blind mountain
climber
Erik Weihenmayer writes, "Sight ... is only one of the many tools with
which
to experience the marvels of the world."

Touch the Invisible Sky uses Braille, large type print, and tactile
diagrams
of celestial images observed by space telescopes Hubble, Chandra, and
Spitzer to reveal the cosmos to the blind and seeing-impaired.

Many of the pictures in the book show the cosmos at wavelengths that no
human eye can see--e.g., infra-red, ultraviolet and x-rays. "By showing
these images, we remind readers that most of the universe and its beauty
is
hidden for all of our eyes unless we use special telescopes," says Doris
Daou, a NASA astronomer who co-authored the book along with Noreen Grice
and
Simon Steele.

According to Kathleen Lestition, who coordinates Education and Outreach
for
the Chandra X-ray Center, "The Touch the Invisible Sky project began as
a
small mission grant, but NASA is making this book a national resource,
distributing copies of the book at no cost to schools of the blind
around
the US, the Library of Congress, several blind technology and training
centers, and state libraries that have astronomy collections."

Science@NASA asked two blind readers to review the book. Until age 15,
Tim
Hendel could see light and dark, colors, shadows, and large objects such
as
the sun and moon. He could not read print but learned to read Braille.
Deborah Saylor was born totally blind and also reads Braille. Hendel and
Saylor live in Huntsville, Alabama, and have been space enthusiasts
since
childhood. Both experienced Touch the Invisible Sky and shared their
comments.

Tim Hendel
"Even though I've lived in Huntsville, which is nicknamed the 'Rocket
City,'
for twelve years, I had no idea what a space telescope looked like or
how a
star might be depicted on a map. There's not much information on this
kind
of thing in Braille, so I was thrilled to read Touch the Invisible Sky.

On page 4 is a depiction of all the wavelengths of the electro-magnetic
spectrum, from radio to gamma-rays. It shows, in a way, that all humans
are
partially blind. No one can see gamma-rays! Yet the cosmos is bright and
lively in these 'invisible' wavelengths.

I'm a ham radio operator, so I already had a good understanding of the
radio
part of the spectrum, but it's useful to see the entire spectrum shown
on
one diagram. I can show this diagram to some of my other blind friends
to
explain how the whole spectrum comes together and how astronomers use
different kinds of telescopes to 'see' everything from radio waves to
gamma-rays.

I knew that our sun emits light and heat, and I had a vague notion that
there were other kinds of radiation that our sun and other stars emit.
But
looking at the diagrams in the book brought home to me just how little
of
the actual energy sent out by stars can be seen with the eyes or felt on
the
skin."

Deborah Saylor
"I moved to Huntsville a few years ago. After all these years of living
here
in the Rocket City and hearing about the space industry, I'm finally
able to
appreciate space exploration in the same way everyone else does! So I
am, to
say the least, very excited about being able to see this book!

The thing that impressed me so much about Touch the Invisible Sky was
the
way the authors put things together so I could experience what people
with
sight are seeing. The diagrams helped me to see, but, through touch. The
explanations of the diagrams were very helpful for getting the ideas
across.

I like this book a lot, and I recommend it to others. It's really
something!"

Touch the Invisible Sky ends with the following analogy: "Imagine that
you
could only hear sound from the middle three keys on a piano and were
asked
to name a song.... Being able to study a star, nebula, or galaxy across
the
entire electromagnetic spectrum gives us the big picture, providing
clues to
unravel the greatest mysteries ...."

Saylor, a Van Cliburn finalist who plays entire piano concertos from
memory,
agrees: "The way to seek and learn the most is to develop as many ways
of
'seeing' things as possible. And keep your sense of curiosity and wonder
alive, always!"

That's exactly what scientists do as they journey through the cosmos,
and
now the blind can ride along.

Touch the Invisible Sky was authored by astronomy educator and
accessibility
specialist Noreen Grice of You Can Do Astronomy LLC and Museum of
Science,
Boston, astronomer Simon Steel of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA, and astronomer Doris Daou of NASA. NASA
funded the astronomy Braille book, which was publicly released Tuesday,
January 15, 2008.

The tactile diagrams feature raised outlines and textures superimposed
on
the images themselves to indicate how the objects appear differently
according to wavelength viewed in - for example, radio, infrared,
visible,
ultra-violet, or x-ray. The text clearly and concisely explains what
each
image shows, and even describes how the different types of telescopes
capture the images.

The Braille and the tactile diagrams are done in clear acrylic overlay,
so
the large print type and high-resolution color images can be viewed as
well
as felt. Touch the Invisible Sky is therefore a useful teaching tool for
mainstream classrooms and parents with blind children, making the same
information accessible simultaneously by sighted, non-sighted, and
reduced-vision readers.