Book Lets Blind 'Touch' the Cosmos

Jan. 16, 2008 -- The universe can now be felt, as well as seen, in wavelengths of light which are invisible to the human eye.

The National Federation of the Blind and NASA have unveiled the new book "Touch the Invisible Sky," by Noreen Grice, which blends written text, Braille, astronomical images and embossed textures to recreate stars, galaxies and other cosmic objects as observed through some of the world's most advanced telescopes.

Unlike her four other astronomy books -- on the universe, the sun, moon phases and Hubble Space Telescope images -- her new book takes on an aspect of the universe that can't be actually seen directly by anyone.

"It totally levels the playing field," Grice told Discovery News. "Most of the light in the universe is not visible to our eyes."

So it makes no difference whether you represent celestial scenes made by X-rays, infrared or ultraviolet light as a false-color photograph or tactilely. Both are truthful and valid representations of astronomical data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope and large ground-based telescopes.

Grice's new book chooses both visual and tactile representations for its 28 images so that both sighted and blind readers can learn from the same book.

The tactile images use specially chosen textures and keys to help blind readers to interpret the images. Every image is also vetted by students at the Colorado School for the Blind to make sure that they actually work.