Starting today, the understanding of our universe will be at everyone’s fingertips–literally. A ceremony today at the National Federation for the Blind, NASA revealed a new book with pictures and images of the galaxy that can be read by the blind and visually impaired.
“Touch the Invisible Sky” is a 60-page book that features colored images of stars, galaxies, and other wonders of the universe. Each image, however, is embossed with bumps, lines, and patterns that translate into colors, lines, and shapes. Braille and large print descriptions will accompany each image.
Astronomer and author of the book, Noreen Grice states, “About 10 million visually impaired people live in the United States. I hope this book will be a unique resource for people who are sighted or blind to better understand the part of the universe that is invisible to all of us.”
The book will be the first that will allow those who are visually impaired to observe and understand our galaxies. “Touch the Invisible Sky” will be available through the Library of Congress repositories, schools for the blind, libraries, and science centers.