Dimensions of Discovery
A web page is maintained by Alyssa Goodman to showcase the use of technology in research, education, and communication, of science and more. It's a bit of a "friends & family" site, in that it offers handy links to sites you've hopefully already heard about, and that offer the context you seek. Often, you will arrive here after we've spoken in person about one or more of these projects--thanks for your interest!
Handouts & Materials from Recent Events
Harvard's COUR Visit to
the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, April 19, 2024
the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, April 19, 2024
Radcliffe Science Symposium, April 4, 2024
(Radcliffe Wave & Eclipse Data Story handout)
What's happening "these days?" A sampler of ongoing and recent projects.
The Radcliffe Wave
A gigantic "wave" of dense gas that forms the spine of the Local Arm of the Milky Way. (Alves et al. 2020, Nature). And, turns out it is even waving (see Konietzka et al. 2024, Nature.)
The Local Bubble
A 1000-light-year-wide bubble surrounding the Sun and Earth is apparently responsible for the formation of all nearby, young stars. (Zucker et al. 2022, Nature)
Data + Climate
A collaboration of researchers at Harvard and Google, making data discoverable and available to researchers seeking to uncover novel solutions to climate and sustainability challenges.
STEM Communication. Science is Journey, not a Destination
Cosmic Data Stories
CosmicDS offers a new way to learn data science using "real" data from significant astronomical discoveries.
Part of the NASA Science Activation program and the WorldWide Telescope Ambassadors Program.
CosmicDS-TEMPO Collaboration
TEMPO, a collaboration between the Smithsonian and NASA, is the first space-based probe to measure air pollution hourly over North America at neighborhood scale. CosmicDS is creating a new Data Story that allows learners to explore TEMPO data on a map or in time-based graphs. Try out our TEMPO-Lite viewer!
The Paths-to, and the Path-to Foundation
The Path to Newton
The Path-to-Newton, part of The Prediction Project (above), tells the story of what Isaac Newton and those whose work he built upon would have needed to know--or been confused by--in order to create a Predictive Theory of Gravity. (Also available as a poster!)
When to use what technology?
The Vienna Model of Orion
Sometimes, craft supplies are the best "technology." This 3D model of Orion was built at a convening of experts called "Orion Unplugged," held in Vienna in 2017. The tactile visualization approach to facilitating conversation and understanding is modeled on Image and Meaning workshops convened by Felice Frankel.
Augmented Reality
Other times, we want to push new frontiers of technology. This video showcases the first use of Augmented Reality in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. (Bialy et al. 2021). The analysis in the paper uses the glue software tool to inter-connect various 2D and 3D data sets. The professional animation uses the same data files shown in the paper, all of which are archived on the Dataverse, alongside the "glue" sessions needed to reproduce and/or modify the paper's figures.
Three-Dimensional Context
Comparisons between two- and three-dimensional views are well-facilitated by on-screen interactive technologies. This graphic is a sample from "On the Three-dimensional Structure of Local Molecular Clouds," by Zucker et al. (2021). The views were created using the "glue" exploratory data analysis , exporting results to javascript-based web-display tools.
Amazingly Versatile Software
WorldWide Telescope
WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a "Universe Information System," first developed at Microsoft Research. Today, it is an open-source project hosted by the American Astronomical Society. You can use WWT via the GUI-interface web client you see above, or as a desktop program in Windows. WWT is used by astronomy researchers embedded seamlessly in other software (e.g. glue, see below), via a python API (pyWWT). It can also be used to produce interactive "tours" of the Universe, many of which are showcased at the website of the WorldWide Telescope Ambassadors program, which used WWT and other software in STEM education.
glue (a.k.a. glueviz.org)
glue is a free, open-source, software package first developed to enable exploratory visualization of diverse but related data sets in astronomy. It runs on desktop computers and also within Jupyter environments online. It was first funded by, and is used extensively, in the NASA James Webb Space Telescope project. Significant additional support has been provided by NSF and the Moore Foundation.
Robust astronomy-related plug-ins to glue include WorldWide Telescope (see above) and Open Space (see openspaceproject.com ). Plug-ins are under development for Aladin (Lite, and ESA Sky) and SAMP.
Recent work, in conjunction with the Data+Climate project at Harvard, using Dataverse and datacommons.org also connects glue in Jupyter environments to GIS tools via ipyleaflet.
glue is also used in the life sciences, for example by the glue genes project, described below.
glue genes is a custom version of the glue software for the visual exploration of genomics data. Developed as a partnership between glue solutions, inc. and the Jackson Laboratory.
Interactive Figures in Scholarly Journals
The same technologies (e.g. glue and WorldWide Telescope) that enrich research and education can also be used in communication, including in scholarly Journals. This page, from the glue solutions "spinoff" (of glue) website, showcases a variety of interactive figures produced using glue. Here's just one example, as seen in Nature, from Zucker et al. 2022.
Communicating Key Ideas: "Uncertainty" describes certainty.
A weather forecast with uncertainty. Driven by a comparison of historical forecasts with data on what actually happened. (Also used to demonstrate uncertainty, as part of the PredictionX project at Harvard.)
Slide-the-Puck
A sample "physics" simulation, demonstrating how uncertainty arises, created by Harvard students, for use in the Prediction Project.
From the Prediction Project's essay focused on perception of COVID-19 modeling.
Go further...
10 Questions to Ask when Creating a Visualization
The 10QViz project is an online effort to share visualization-related knowledge with everyone that might be otherwise accessible only to visualization experts.
Seeing More of the Universe
A YouTube playlist focused on data visualization, with an emphasis on astronomy.
The Timeline Consortium
Making it possible to display temporal data easily, in contexts ranging from sub-atomic processes to historical timelines sourced from Wikipedia.
glue solutions, inc
What can we do with glue, for you?