full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Fabio Pacucci: Could the Earth be swallowed by a black hole?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Still, the combination of how small they are and how vast the galaxy is means that stellar black hleos don’t give us much to worry about. But we still have to meet the second type: supermassive black holes. These have masses millions or boillins times gteearr than that of our sun and have eevnt horizons that could span billions of kilometers. These giants have grown to iemmnse proportions by soilanlwwg matter and merging with other black holes. Unlike their stellar cnsouis, supermassive black holes aren’t wandering through space. Instead, they lie at the ctener of galaxies, including our own. Our solar system is in a sltabe oibrt around a supermassive black hole that resides at the center of the Milky Way, at a safe dntiacse of 25,000 light-years. But that could change. If our gxaaly collides with another, the Earth could be thrown towards the galactic center, close enough to the supermassive black hole to be eventually swallowed up. In fact, a collision with the Andromeda Galaxy is predicted to happen 4 billion years from now, which may not be great news for our home planet.

Open Cloze

Still, the combination of how small they are and how vast the galaxy is means that stellar black _____ don’t give us much to worry about. But we still have to meet the second type: supermassive black holes. These have masses millions or ________ times _______ than that of our sun and have _____ horizons that could span billions of kilometers. These giants have grown to _______ proportions by __________ matter and merging with other black holes. Unlike their stellar _______, supermassive black holes aren’t wandering through space. Instead, they lie at the ______ of galaxies, including our own. Our solar system is in a ______ _____ around a supermassive black hole that resides at the center of the Milky Way, at a safe ________ of 25,000 light-years. But that could change. If our ______ collides with another, the Earth could be thrown towards the galactic center, close enough to the supermassive black hole to be eventually swallowed up. In fact, a collision with the Andromeda Galaxy is predicted to happen 4 billion years from now, which may not be great news for our home planet.

Solution

  1. distance
  2. galaxy
  3. cousins
  4. event
  5. greater
  6. immense
  7. center
  8. holes
  9. billions
  10. orbit
  11. swallowing
  12. stable

Original Text

Still, the combination of how small they are and how vast the galaxy is means that stellar black holes don’t give us much to worry about. But we still have to meet the second type: supermassive black holes. These have masses millions or billions times greater than that of our sun and have event horizons that could span billions of kilometers. These giants have grown to immense proportions by swallowing matter and merging with other black holes. Unlike their stellar cousins, supermassive black holes aren’t wandering through space. Instead, they lie at the center of galaxies, including our own. Our solar system is in a stable orbit around a supermassive black hole that resides at the center of the Milky Way, at a safe distance of 25,000 light-years. But that could change. If our galaxy collides with another, the Earth could be thrown towards the galactic center, close enough to the supermassive black hole to be eventually swallowed up. In fact, a collision with the Andromeda Galaxy is predicted to happen 4 billion years from now, which may not be great news for our home planet.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
black holes 9
black hole 7
supermassive black 4
event horizon 2
stellar black 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
stellar black holes 2
supermassive black holes 2
supermassive black hole 2

Important Words

  1. andromeda
  2. billion
  3. billions
  4. black
  5. center
  6. change
  7. close
  8. collides
  9. collision
  10. combination
  11. cousins
  12. distance
  13. earth
  14. event
  15. eventually
  16. fact
  17. galactic
  18. galaxies
  19. galaxy
  20. giants
  21. give
  22. great
  23. greater
  24. grown
  25. happen
  26. hole
  27. holes
  28. home
  29. horizons
  30. immense
  31. including
  32. kilometers
  33. lie
  34. masses
  35. matter
  36. means
  37. meet
  38. merging
  39. milky
  40. millions
  41. news
  42. orbit
  43. planet
  44. predicted
  45. proportions
  46. resides
  47. safe
  48. small
  49. solar
  50. space
  51. span
  52. stable
  53. stellar
  54. sun
  55. supermassive
  56. swallowed
  57. swallowing
  58. system
  59. thrown
  60. times
  61. vast
  62. wandering
  63. worry
  64. years