The Blind Astronomer

This is the story, and the sound, of Puerto Rican scientist Wanda
Díaz-Merced, who is revolutionising astronomy by turning data
from space into audio that can be explored by ear.


This process, ‘sonification’, is not only making the universe
accessible to people with visual disabilities, it takes advantage
of the human ear’s ability to explore vast ranges of data and
spot patterns that could be missed by other means. It’s already
proved its worth scientifically, with discoveries being made that
are complementary to those found by traditional analysis.


Growing up, Wanda was always focused on a career in science, but
when she began losing her sight at university, she realised that
most areas of science were becoming impossible for her.


An epiphany came when she encountered NASA’s Radio Jove and was
able to hear the sound of radiation from the Sun. She knew
immediately that this was her new direction, but also that if she
wanted astronomy to develop into audio, she was going to have to
make it happen herself.


Her drive and ambition led to her working with NASA, followed by
a doctorate in computer science, so as to learn and experiment
with creating tools that would allow astronomers to analyse data
by simply listening to it.


Having achieved success and recognition for her work over several
years, her next project takes her into one of the hottest areas
of current astronomy, the hunt for gravitational waves. These
tiny ripples in space-time were found for the first time only in
2015. As technology improves, more signals will be detected but
these will be surrounded by masses of non-gravitational wave
signals. The human ear is better than any computer at
categorising these signals, so through a huge citizen science
project, Reinforce, Wanda and her team aim to work with many
thousands of volunteers to listen to and analyse reams of data,
to help progress this new area of science. The future, as Wanda
says, is not just about sound, or vision, it is multisensory –
the more senses we can use to explore the world, the more we
discover.


Contributors to the programme are: Wanda Diaz Merced, Professor
Steve Brewster (University of Glasgow), Professor Martin Hendry
(University of Glasgow), Professor Katrien Kolenberg, and Grant
Miller (Zooniverse/Oxford University).


Specially composed music: Thomas Hoey


Presenter: Kate Molleson


Producer: Anne McNaught


First broadcast on Tuesday 15 June 2021.