Tactile black hole image

In 2017, the Event Horizon Telescope observed the giant black hole in the center of the galaxy M87. After a great deal of work, in 2019 the collaboration released an image they had produced from the data. It shows the shadow of the black hole against the glow of hot plasma falling in. This Thing is a realization of that image in three-dimensional tactile form. Labels are written in Braille along the sides for the benefit of people with limited or no vision.

This Thing includes three versions: a single-color version that is easy to print but contains only Braille text, a version that uses one change of colors to put text for sighted users on the bottom, and a version that uses a multicolor printer to do the same.

For more details on the project: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/

For the data release used to construct this Thing: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/for-astronomers/data