Film: Listen to the Universe

FREE
Registration recommended.

We strongly recommend claiming a ticket to ensure your seat. This in-person program is expected to be at capacity.

Questions? Email Hirshhornexperience@si.edu
Hirshhorn Insiders, email HMSGdevelopment@si.edu

 

NASA is famous for beautiful space images, but did you know you can listen to them? Go behind the scenes with the team that creates “sonifications,” translations of data into sound, and learn how meaningful they are to people who are blind or low vision.

This program is presented in partnership with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and NASA.

Registration is encouraged.

 

PROGRAM

Film: Listen to the Universe
Runtime: 27 min.

Q&A: Kimberly Arcand and Elizabeth Landau

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Dr. Kimberly Arcand is a leading expert in astronomy visualization and an innovator in 3D imaging, printing, and extended reality applications with astrophysics data. She has worked for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory since 1998. Her current projects include sonification of spatial data, screen-based holograms, machine learning as applied to image processing, and other intersections of emerging technology and astrophysics. She is the coauthor of several popular-science books, including Light: The Visible Spectrum and Beyond, which will be available in paperback this summer Dr. Arcand is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, Brown University, and the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Elizabeth Landau has been working with NASA to tell inspiring stories of exploring the cosmos since 2014. At NASA headquarters in Washington, via ASRC Federal, she contributes her writing and editing expertise to a variety of website, podcast, and video projects, leading multimedia efforts for the Astrophysics Division. Previously she was based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, supporting media and digital efforts. A former CNN journalist, Liz additionally contributes articles to the New York Times, Washington Post, and Quanta Magazine, among other publications. She is a graduate of Princeton University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In her spare time, she writes songs about space.

 

ABOUT CHANDRA

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a member of NASA’s current fleet of “Great Observatories,” along with the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. Since it was launched into space in July 1999, Chandra has changed our view of the high-energy universe. Chandra allows scientists from around the world to obtain X-ray images of exotic environments and helps us understand the structure and evolution of the universe.

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, a research unit of the Smithsonian Institution, runs the Chandra X-ray Center, which controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts, on behalf of NASA. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program.

NASA’s Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

NASA+ is the agency’s new streaming platform, delivering video and other content about NASA to the public whenever and wherever they want to access it. The on-demand streaming service is available to download on most major platforms via the NASA App on iOS and Android mobile and tablet devices, as well as streaming media players Roku and Apple TV.