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
- distance
- galaxy
- cousins
- event
- greater
- immense
- center
- holes
- billions
- orbit
- swallowing
- 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
- andromeda
- billion
- billions
- black
- center
- change
- close
- collides
- collision
- combination
- cousins
- distance
- earth
- event
- eventually
- fact
- galactic
- galaxies
- galaxy
- giants
- give
- great
- greater
- grown
- happen
- hole
- holes
- home
- horizons
- immense
- including
- kilometers
- lie
- masses
- matter
- means
- meet
- merging
- milky
- millions
- news
- orbit
- planet
- predicted
- proportions
- resides
- safe
- small
- solar
- space
- span
- stable
- stellar
- sun
- supermassive
- swallowed
- swallowing
- system
- thrown
- times
- vast
- wandering
- worry
- years