From a recent binaural carwash adventure on their own podcast. To adventures talking space with us and Christine Malec’s dream of one day meeting astronaut Chris Hadfield, from one Chris to the other. You heard it here first, on the latest episode of Outlook.

The two hosts of Talk Description to Me, Christine Malec and JJ Hunt, who we spoke to about their podcast on ours last winter, are involved in a cool new project that we wanted to highlight.

For months, Malec and Hunt have been working with Kim Arcand from the Chandra X-Ray observatory (who has been doing this sort of visual scientific translating since 98), and now these three are creating written descriptions of the data visualizations that are generated from Chandra research into astronomy from deep space.

Malec reached out to us, last spring on Outlook about all of this, wondering whether we’d be interested in interviewing the three of them about the work, including some of the descriptions they’ve generated, and/or a sonification or two.

It’s a type of translation, from data, translated to 3D printed models, into audio sonifications.

From exploding stars to colliding galaxies and galaxy clusters. As a visualization scientist, Arcand is letting NASA know that though blind people may have felt intimidated by the stem fields for much too long now, it’s a new world of expanded forms of audio and image description. It’s time to expand the infinite number of possibilities for making astronomy and all sciences more accessible and inclusive.

All of this work is making astronomy more accessible to people who are blind and low vision. Kim, JJ and Christine are eager to spread the word about these projects, as Christine says, “Mostly cause they’re cool, but partly to show NASA that accessibility work is valued by our community.”

And all the laughs and science puns, like the cherry on top of what’s already a pretty special Outlook episode to begin with.

For more information on this accessible astronomy work from Christine, JJ, and Kim, visit Chandra’s website. Check out Kim Arcand’s own site and be sure to check out her TED Talk too. And, don’t forget to visit the podcast page for Talk Description to Me to hear more from the weekly episodes Malec and Hunt put out each Saturday:

https://chandra.harvard.edu

https://www.kimarcand.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kTMr5LqIBQ

https://talkdescriptiontome.buzzsprout.com