Tactile

A Universe of Touch and Sound

The Universe is yours to discover.

The following materials are accessible to people who are blind or low vision using a combination of Braille, tactile techniques, and descriptions in both large format text and audio formats, sonifications, as well as a collection of 3D prints of cosmic objects.

RESOURCES

Additional Audio Resources

Touchable Universe in a Box

Mini Stars Kits

Braille/Tactile Posters & Cards

Data Sonification

Sounds from Around the Universe! By turning Chandra and other NASA images into sounds, our project helps you “listen” to data of exploding stars, black holes and more.
(Learn more).

Visual Descriptions

Listen to narrated audio or access plain text files of the detailed visual descriptions of each recent Chandra image released.
(Learn more).

3D Printing the Universe

3D modeling objects in our Universe offers a unique tool to understand scientific data. And while interacting with 3D data on a computer screen can be powerful, the ability to create a physical manifestation of the model - through 3D printing - can take things even farther.
(Learn more).

Lego for the Blind

We have partnered with LEGO for the Blind (LFB) to develop a blind and visually impaired (BVI) adaptation for text-based instructions.
(Learn more).

Touchable Universe in a Box
& Mini Star Kits

Two different kits of a selection of 3D prints of NASA data, and/or a tactile and Braille poster series with audio files.
(Learn more).

Additional Audio Resources

Recent discoveries from NASA’s Chandra mission in audio formats, and an audio explanation of the electromagnetic spectrum.
(Learn more).

Braille/Tactile Posters
and Cards

Poster series using a combination of Braille & large-format text with a variety of tactile textures depicting celestial objects.
(Learn more).

A grouping of four images: Top left, image of M16 Eagle Nebula, also known as Pillars of Humanity; top right, image of Crab Nebula; bottom left, image of Bullet Cluster; bottom right, image of Cassiopeia A

Image of a visualization of a young star, DG Tau. In the center of a dark grey-black space speckled with white and purple stars, DG Tau appears as a blue tilted disk pierced by a purple stream. The stream narrows towards the center, representing jets that blast away from the magnetic poles.

Image of Cassiopeia A built in Legos. Lego sculpture sits on a royal blue Lego mat. It is built using various colors (blue, violet, green, pink, white) to represent different elements of the supernova remnant.

Photo of an Asian American female student who is low vision exploring 3D printed astronomy models with her hands.

Photo of an African American boy reading a braille book of astronomy.

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
60 Garden Street,
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Creator/Manager: Kimberly Arcand
Art Direction/Design: Kristin DiVona
Web Developer: Khajag Mgrdichian

Chandra X-ray Center, Operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. This site was developed with funding from NASA under contract NAS8-03060 | |
Additional support from NASA's Universe of Learning (UoL). UoL materials are based upon work supported by NASA under award number NNX16AC65A to the Space
Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.