A new eBook could help children with visual impairments see the stars.
The book, titled "Reach for the Stars: Touch, Look, Listen, Learn", will focus on a Hubble Space Telescope image depicting the 30 Doradus Nebula; a colorful "star-forming region," a Hubble news release reported.
The book is not only limited to visually impaired children.
"We hope it will be an inspiration and attract people to science," Elena Sabbi of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), said in the news release. "That's the main goal. We want to convince children that science is cool, is fun, and that anybody could be a scientist, if they want to."
"I feel strongly that people with disabilities don't want separate materials," Ed Summers, senior manager of accessibility and applied assisted technology at SAS, said. "We want to be able to access the same materials as everybody else, but in a way that adapts to individual needs. That's why we created this mainstream book in a way that would benefit everybody, rather than something that is specifically dedicated to a relatively small audience of students with visual impairments."
The eBook is about 90 pages long. Each of the six chapters begins with a question, and then answers it using "read aloud" technology" which will read the text out loud while providing braille to read (a feature that is accessible on any iPad).
Many of the images and videos included in the book are interactive. "Tarantula Nebula, for example, are marked by circles. Touch a circle and a short caption appears on the screen describing the cluster," the news release reported.
SAS is also working on displaying astronomy to the visually impaired using "sonification," which uses sounds to paint a visual picture. In one example the innovators would use pitch to indicate the brightness of various stars; the higher the pitch the brighter the star.
"It's a way to convey information that there is a trend in the distribution of stars in the diagram," Sabbi said. "If you are trying to explore the images with your finger you can get lost. This is a much stronger way to convey the information."
Some of the images in the book will employ tactile overlays that will allow readers to "feel" the pictures using raised textures.
The book was inspired by Chelsea Cook, a blind college intern who worked with Sabbi and needed a way to read digital scientific data.
"Reach for the Stars' shows the blind that there are no barriers to scare you," she added. "And technology is improving so fast that we are sure you will be able to learn and to do things. Things are becoming more reachable."
