Touch the Invisible Sky is a 60-page tactile astronomy book written by astronomy educator Noreen Grice, and astronomers Simon Steel and

Doris Daou Doris Daou (born 1964) is a Lebanese-born astronomer from Canada who was formerly the Director for Education and Public Outreach of the NASA Lunar Science Institute and the Associate Director of the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual ...

, and was published in 2007 by Ozone publishing. The book contains colour images alongside Braille and large print descriptions of celestial objects, and colour photographs from the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

Chandra X-Ray Observatory The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources 1 ...

, and Spitzer Space Telescope, amongst others, which are over-laid with TechnoBraille, allowing visually impaired readers to feel the images. The images featured include nebulae, stars, galaxies and some of the telescopes used to photograph the celestial objects. The images span a range of wavelengths on the

electromagnetic spectrum The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of frequencies (the spectrum) of electromagnetic radiation and their respective wavelengths and photon energies. The electromagnetic spectrum covers electromagnetic waves with frequencies ranging fro ...

, with a variety of textures and shapes used to convey the characteristics of the objects. The objects featured include our own

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

, the star

Eta Carinae Eta Carinae (η Carinae, abbreviated to η Car), formerly known as Eta Argus, is a stellar system containing at least two stars with a combined luminosity greater than five million times that of the Sun, located around distant in th ...

, The Crab Nebula, and

Kepler's Supernova SN 1604, also known as Kepler's Supernova, Kepler's Nova or Kepler's Star, was a Type Ia supernova that occurred in the Milky Way, in the constellation Ophiuchus. Appearing in 1604, it is the most recent supernova in the Milky Way galaxy to ha ...

. It was partly funded by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

, who have also funded two other books by Grice, ''Touch the Universe'' and ''Touch the Sun'', and by an education grant from the Chandra mission. {{Quote, text=We wanted to show that the beauty and complexity of the universe goes far beyond what we can see with our eyes!, author=Doris Daou, title=, source=https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2008/news-2008-05.html

References

2007 in outer space 2007 books