Having a massive black hole in our hands -Wow the Milky Way!- it is something that has made possible the research project of the Universitat de València ‘A Touch of the Universe’, led by Amelia Ortiz Gil, astrophysicist from the Observatori Astronòmic UV, and that is developing the second phase with “more complex and unique” new models in 3D.

Amelia Ortiz opens the doors to the Aula del Cel of the Universitat de València to us, where the space is disposed to receive researchers, university students and Primary and Secondary school students, with or without low vision, and that way discover for them the Universe as they have never imagined before: within their grasp.

We talk about a project by the Universitat de València ‘A Touch of the Universe’, that starts in 2007 to participate in the International Day of Astronomy (2009), with a planetary programme to blind people and that grows along time to reach a second phase of research in 2023: which is revealed now.

“We began to organise the activities to be done in 2009 from past experiences, such as the one by Sebastián Musso in Argentina. We create a programme for blind people that was released in the Hemisfèric of Valencia with great success”, explains the main researcher of the project. Later, the Moon –“an important referent for the history of Humanity”, she affirms- and, finally, the four rocky planets: Mercurio, Venus, La Tierra and Marte.

Then was born ‘A Touch of the Universe’, a solidary research project that made the Universe accessible to blind or with low vision people through the production of astrokits -that, apart from the spheres, counted with a book about the Moon and layers of the NASA, all of it, tactile material-. The realisation of the work took place with the support of the International Astronomical Union Office of Astronomy for Development.

These kits were divided all along the world to disadvantaged countries of America, Africa and Asia so children with little resources could comprehend the present elements in the sky. “It is thrilling to feel the enthusiasm with which they receive the models along with their explanations; and, at the same time, you realise the false conceptions they have. For instance, a child that has been born blind, that only knows the Moon exists only because there are tactile books, ends up thinking that it is something flat; however, when they touch for the first time a sphere they realise that it’s not like that, that it has volume..., and looking at that reaction is beautiful”, remembers Amelia Ortiz.

‘A Touch of the Universe’, in which researchers from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia and the Instituto de Física de Cantabria, go beyond and, thanks to the funding of the European funds NextGeneration they have achieved to make “unique” new 3D models. “They are much more complex mock-ups that represent more complex and difficult astronomic realities to explain to any person, blind or not”, says the Valencian astrophysicist.

With a first goal of “illustrating concepts and showing important objects in Astronomy”, the Universitat de València proposes astonishing models, such as the B-type subdwarf, “special, massive, hot and young”, which has emission lines in their spectre and that turns with great speed, which gives them a curious elongated shape; or the Milky Way that, as Amelia Ortiz says, “we cannot see because it is so big that it cannot be photographed by a satellite”; however, through the data given by the Gaia European vision of astronomy it is possible to obtain an accurate and reliable picture of the galaxy, now printed in 3D and completely palpable: from its central nucleus to the stars and gas bar from which two spiral main arms come out giving way to other secondary arms.

“All of this can be told, can be seen, but if it can also be touched, much better, right?”, points out Ortiz, who also highlights the relevance of the material used for the three-dimensional print, the dust, because it provides an organic and sustainable experience, contrary to materials composed of other plastics or resins.

The obtained information through the telescope data, such as the Hubble, has made the creation of previous models easier, as well as the local group of galaxies in which the Milky Way is located, allowing us to appreciate “how our neighbours are”; even a model of the local Universe that includes a thousand million of light years and in which “we can see where are the superclusters of galaxies -groups of millions of galaxies that are in the Universe- and how the black matter and gas filaments are distributed”: this is the cosmic web.

These and other models can be found in just one click: they are available in the website of the project, https://astrokit.uv.es/, and can be downloaded for free, so that from any point on the planet and with a 3D printer each of the pieces for its use in education, dissemination or research can be reproduced.

One of the main reasons of the relevance of a project such as ‘A Touch of the Universe’ comes from “making Astronomy be also accessible to blind people that can touch what they cannot perceive in images”. However, as Ortiz admits, there is another reason “We want people making science professionally be as diverse as possible, because diversity is richness”. In fact, along to this project has always been UVdisability, the Unit for the Integration of People with Disabilities of the Universitat de València, the first of the Spanish universities in suggesting a specific programme for teacher and research staff with disabilities, the first of the Spanish on-site universities with more than a thousand students with disabilities and, finally, the referent university in disabilities assistance in Spain.

And why? Because, according to Amelia Ortiz, “the sky is a treasure that belongs to all human kind that live on Earth, therefore, those who study it have the obligation of making it accessible, explaining it..., so no one stays behind and whoever wants is able to learn and enjoy the Universe as us astronomers do”.

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