Once there was a star,
like everything else, she was born grilled (?) to be about 30x
the mass of our sun
and lived for a very long time.
Exactly how long?
People cannot really tell.
Just like everything in life,
she reached the end of her regular star days
when her heart, the core of her life, exhausted its fuel.
But that was no end.
she transformed into a supernovae,
and in the process, releasing a tremendous of energy,
outshining the rest of the galaxy,
and emitting, in one second, the same amount of energy
our sun will release in 10 days.
And she evolved into another role in our galaxy.
Supernovae explosions are very extreme.
But the ones that emit gamma rays are even more extreme.
In the process of becoming a supernovae,
the interior of the star collaposes under its own weight.
And it starts rotating ever-faster.
Like an ice skater when pulling their arms in close to their body.
In that way, it starts rotating very fast and it increases, powerfully,
its magnetic field.
The matter around the star is dragged around,
and some energy from that rotation is transferred to that matter
and the magnetic field is increased even further.
In that way, our star had extra energy to outshine the rest of the galaxy
in brightness and gamma ray emission.
My star, the one in my story,
became what is known as a magnetar.
And just for your information,
the magnetic field of a magnetar is 1,000 trillionx
the magnetic field of earth.
The most energetic events ever measured by astronmers
carry the name Gamma Ray Bursts
because we observe them as bursts or explosions
most strongly measured as gamma ray light.
Our star, like the one in our story that became a magnetar,
is detected as a gamma ray burst
through the most energetic portion of the explosion.
Yet, even though gamma ray bursts are the stongest events
ever measured by astronomers,
we cannot see them with our naked eye.
We depend, we rely on other methods
in order to study this gamma ray light.
We cannot see them with our naked eye.
We can only see an itty bitty tinny portion
of the electromagnetic spectrum that call visible light.
And beyond that, we rely on other methods.
And as astronomers, we study a wider range of light
and we depend on other methods to do that.
On the screen, it may look like this.
You're seeing a plot,
that is a light curve.
It's a plot of intensity of light over time.
It is a gamma ray light curve.
Sighted astronomers depend on this kind of plot
in order to interpret how this light intensity changes over time.
On the left, you will be seeing the light intensity without a burst,
and on the right, you will be seeing the light intensity with the burst.
Early during my career, I could also see this kind of plot.
But then, I lost my sight, I completely lost my sight
because of an extended illness,
and with it, I lost the opportunity to see this plot
and the opportunity to do my physics.
It was a very strong transition for me in many ways.
And professionally, it left me without a way to do my science.
I longed to access adn scrutinize this energetic light
and figure out the astrophysical cost.
I wanted to experience the spacious wonder, the excitement,
the joy produced by the detection of such a titanic celestial event.
I thought long and hard about it.
When I suddenly realized that all a light curve is
is a table of numbers converted into a visual plot.
So along with my collaborators,
we worked really hard and we translated the numbers into sound.
I achieved access to the data,
and today I'm able to do physics at the level of the best astronomer
using sound.
And what people have been able to do, mainly visually,
for hundreds of years,
now I do it using sound.
(Applause)
Listening to this gamma ray burst that you're seeing on the --
thank you --
that you're seeing on the screen,
brought something to the ear beyond the obvious burst.
Now I'm going to play the burst for you,
it's not music, it's sound.
(Sound of the plot)
This is scientific data converted into sound
and it's mapped in pitch, the process is called sonification.
So listening to this brought something to the ear
besides the obvious burst.
When I examine the very strong low frequency regions,
or base line,
I'm zooming into the base line now -- or the baseline,
we know that resonances that were characteristic
of electrically charged gasses like the solar wind.
And I want you to hear what I heard.
You will hear it as a very fast decrease in volume.
And because you're sighted,
I'm giving you a red line indicating to you
what intensity of light is being converted into sound.
(Sound)
The (whistle) is frogs at home, don't pay attention to that.
(Laughter)
(Sound)
I think you heard it, right?
So what we found is that the bursts last long enough
in order to support wave resonances,
which are things caused by exchanges of energy between particles
that may have been excited that depend on the volume.
You may remember that I said that the matter around the star
is dragged around?
It transmits power with frequency and field distribution that
are ?? by the dimensions
And you may remember that we were talking about
a supermassive star that became a very strong magnetic field magnetar.
If this is the case, then outflows from the exploding star
may be associated with this gamma ray burst.
What does that mean?
That star formation may be a very important part
of this supernovae explosion.
Listening to this very gamma ray burst
brought us to the notion that the use of sound
as a adjunctive visual display
may also support sighted astronomers in the search
for more information in the data.
Simultaneously, I worked on analyzing measurements from other telescopes
and my experiments demonstrated that when you use sound
as an adjunctive visual display,
astronomers can find more information
in this now more accessible data set.
And this ability to transform data into sound
gives astronomy a tremendous power of transformation.
And the fact that a field that is so visual may be improved
in order to include anyone with interest what in heaven lies
is a spirit-lifter.
When I lost my sight,
I noticed that I didn't have access to the same amount
and quality of information a sighted astronomer had.
It was not until we innovated with the sonification process
that I regained the hope of being a productive member
of the field that I have worked so hard to be part of.
Yet, information access is not the only area in astronomy
where this is important.
The situation is systemic
and scientific fields are not keeping up.
The body is something changeable --
anyone may develop a disability at any point.
And let's think about, for example, scientists who are
already at the top of their careers,
what happens to them if they develop a disability?
Will they feel excommunicated as I did?
Information access empowers us to flourish.
It gives us equal opportunities to display our talents
and choose what we want to do with our lives
based on interest and not based on potential barriers.
When we give people the opportunity to succeed without limits,
that will lead to personal fulfillment and prospering life.
And I think that the use of sound in astronomy
is helping us to achieve that and to contribute to science.
While other countries told me that the study of perception techniques
in order to study astronomy data is not relevant to astronomy
because there are no bling astronomers in the field,
South Africa said, "We want people with disabilities
to contribute to the field."
Right now, I'm working at the South African Astronomical Observatory
at the office of Astronomy for Development.
There, we are working on sonification techniques
and analysis methods to impact the students
of the Athlone School for the Blind.
The se students will be learning radio astornomy
and they will be learning the sonification methods
in order to study astronomical events like huge ejections of energy