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Hearing The Light: Astronomy Data Sonification

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Hearing The Light: How Sonification Deepens our Understanding of the Cosmos and Makes Astronomy More Accessible
Scott Fleming, Clara Brasseur, and Jennifer Kotler, Space Telescope Science Institute

Sonification is the process of representing data as sound. Rather than looking at a chart or graph, the underlying information can be transformed into audio and analyzed by listening. This technique offers exciting new ways for scientists to study data, and provides blind and low-vision people a new level of data access and analysis. Astronify is our tool for sonifying archival data from NASA missions. We will discuss the goals of the project and describe how our software converts measurements of a star’s changes in brightness to changes in pitch. After learning about Astronify, the audience is invited to play in our online game show to see how well one can hear and identify transiting exoplanets and stellar flares in real data from the Kepler Space Telescope.

Host: Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute
Recorded live on Tuesday, November 10, 2020
More information: www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

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Jennifer Wiseman & Julie McEnery, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA recently announced that its next-generation space telescope, formerly called the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), has been named in honor of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman. As NASA’s first Chief Astronomer, Dr. Roman paved the way for space telescopes focused on the broader universe. She is credited with making the Hubble Space Telescope a reality, leading to her nickname as the “mother of Hubble.”

When it launches in the mid-2020s, NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will create enormous space panoramas of unprecedented detail. The mission’s wide field of view will enable scientists to conduct sweeping cosmic surveys, yielding a wealth of information about celestial realms from our solar system to the edge of the observable universe.

Roman will survey the sky in infrared light, which is invisible to human eyes. It will have the same resolution in near-infrared wavelengths as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, but will capture a field of view about 100 times larger.

Roman’s surveys will deliver new insights into the history and structure of the universe, including the mysterious “dark energy” that is making space itself expand faster and faster. This powerful new observatory will also build on the broad foundation of work begun with Hubble and other observatories on planets outside our solar system. It will discover thousands of exoplanets using its wide-field camera and study the atmospheres of giant gaseous planets orbiting other stars with a sophisticated technology demonstration coronagraph.

Host: Frank Summers, Space Telescope Science Institute
Recorded live on Tuesday, October 6, 2020
More information: www.stsci.edu/public-lectures

Science Writers’ Workshop on the Roman Space Telescope

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This workshop for science journalists, presented by the Space Telescope Science Institute, provides an overview of major areas of scientific inquiry that NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will address. A panel of prominent astronomers speaks on a variety of topics, including:

Overview of Roman Science with the Wide Field Instrument and Coronagraph
The Dark Universe
Galaxies Across Cosmic Time
Science Synergies of the 2020’s
Dr. Nancy Grace Roman