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