Sky & Telescope - March 2024 - 33

Grice has since written and developed numerous books and
tactile images for the blind and low-vision community. Conveying
information in three dimensions - like with Braille,
for example - has long been a vital way to communicate with
audiences who are blind or have low vision. But for the majority
of astronomy education, the communication stopped at
Braille text, with no images to be found.
Grice's books, like Touch the Stars and Touch the Universe,
however, include embossed images of planets, constellations,
and galaxies, which allow readers to feel an image with their
fingers. Different textures represent different elements of an
image, like dots for stars and lines for constellations.
With this experience in creating tactile astronomy images,
Grice has also collaborated with Arcand to design tactile and
Braille posters of comets, planets, and galaxies. And Arcand's
team has worked on other tactile initiatives, developing
3D-printed models of supernovae and nebulae.
Some stars don't go quietly; they go supernova. A supernova
occurs either when a massive star explodes or a white
dwarf does. With the latter, the dwarf detonates when it
gains too much mass from a companion star. These explosions
can eject matter at speeds that exceed 10,000 kilometers
per second, or over 20 million miles per hour.
The explosions look like lumpy bubbles, with various protrusions
and dimples pockmarking the outer shell. Astronomers
color-code images by wavelength range or by composition,
denoting the different parts of the remnant.
These unique shapes led Arcand and her team to 3D-print
scientifically accurate models of these stellar deathbeds.
In 2017, Arcand's team brought their prints to a group
of students with the National Federation of the Blind to
get their feedback. As each student felt through the models,
Arcand was amazed by their unique perceptions of the prints.
" They were really creating these incredible mental maps
inside their heads as they were exploring tactically through
the object, " she says. " That absolutely blew my mind. "
The workshops helped the team figure out that things
like size, print quality, and texture were very important as
someone explored the objects. The students also asked to feel
the inside of the 3D prints. Much like how images struggle to
convey a supernova remnant's inner geometry, a solid model
is opaque to someone touching it.
This led Arcand to create prints that could be chopped in
half and peeled back like an onion. For the model of Supernova
1006, the fatal explosion of a white dwarf, the inner
layer is a messy conglomerate of little stone-like spheres
connected by short pillars and small pockets. This smooshedtogether
ball of bubbles fits like a puzzle piece into the outer
shell, which represents the high-energy blast wave of the
supernova. The shell is smooth on the outside and dimpled
on the inside to match the inner ball of bubbles.
Universal Design
This phenomenon of creating experiential mental maps is a
common way that people in the blind and low-vision comCASSIOPEIA
A Based on multiple telescopes' observations, this
3D model shows the tempestuous conditions of the hot gas inside the
supernova remnant Cas A.
munity interpret the world. When a person cannot rely on
vision, other senses like sound and touch, and their presence
in their own body, become the primary ways to interact with
their surroundings.
" When I have a three-dimensional representation of a
space in my mind, there's an association of my body being
in that space, " says Christine Malec, an accessibility consultant
and member of the blind community. For her, engaging
with these astronomy materials is like remembering the
route to her local bus stop or the path she takes through the
grocery store.
" Sonifications were life-changing, " says Malec. " They were
a visceral way for me to process some of the really abstract
ideas that I had only been able to read about before that time. "
A black hole sonification or a 3D-printed galaxy appeals to
senses that many of us share - a concept central to universal
design. " Universal design means that we're making something
that the widest range of learners can access, " says STEM
teacher Kris Bayne (Perkins School for the Blind). " Everyone,
regardless of ability, can benefit from accessible astronomy. "
" We have a universe of data, so we might as well universally
design it, " says Arcand.
¢ ISABEL SWAFFORD was once an astronomer. Now she
writes about them (and the universe they study).
sk yand tele scope .o r g * MARCH 2024 33
NASA / CXC
http://skyandtelescope.org
Sky & Telescope - March 2024

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