To behold the cosmos, when you cannot see
How does one see the stars, if they can't see to begin with?
It may seem that astronomy would be difficult to behold for the visually impaired.
So one man has made it his mission to translate it into sound.
His name is Dr Nicolas Bonne, of the UK's University of Portsmouth.
He has difficulty seeing himself, but that hasn't stopped him.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) DR NICOLAS BONNE, FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH INSTITUTE OF COSMOLOGY, SAYING:
"So what we're hearing here is what it would sound like if we could listen to all of the stars that you can see just using the naked eye appearing above the Very Large Telescope, which is an ESO installation in Chile. And you can hear there's louder noises, there's high pitched noises, there's low pitched noises. The louder noises are the brighter stars, the quieter noises are the fainter stars which appear later on as the sun gets lower and lower below the horizon. The high pitched stars are blue and the low pitched stars are red. So there's a lot of information."
Similar to the mechanics of a music box, but the song is interstellar.
Doctor Bonne also makes sound from titans - entire galaxies, even.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) DR NICOLAS BONNE, FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH INSTITUTE OF COSMOLOGY, SAYING:
"Listening to that sound, and this was in full 3D as well, so being played through six surround speakers, hearing those two galaxies whoosh past each other and gradually get closer and closer and closer, that was one of the clearest senses I've ever had of that process going on."
(SOUNDBITE) (English) DR NICOLAS BONNE, FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH INSTITUTE OF COSMOLOGY, SAYING:
"Think of this as a slightly more complicated version of braille."
There is an element of physical touch in this as well. Sometimes Bonne will 3D print images of the cosmos into an engraving.
He shows us a carving of a galaxy. Deep recesses in the work represent low light areas, higher points are the bright spots -- the areas with the biggest concentration of stars.
His works are going into an astronomy show called "A Dark Tour of the Universe," an educational project specifically tailored to unlock the beauty and mystery of space for students and others who are visually impaired.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) DR NICOLAS BONNE, FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH INSTITUTE OF COSMOLOGY, SAYING:
"Everybody has a different learning style regardless of whether they have a disability or not. We really want to make sure that people can choose to learn using these props whatever way they feel comfortable with and get the most out of those props as well."
