full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Aomawa Shields: How we'll find life on other planets

Unscramble the Blue Letters

On our planet, where there's waetr, there's life. So we look for planets that oirbt at just the right distance from their stars. At this distance, shown in blue on this daaigrm for stars of different temperatures, pnteals could be warm enough for water to flow on their surfaces as lakes and oceans where life might reside. Some astronomers focus their time and energy on finding planets at these diescatns from their stars. What I do picks up where their job ends. I model the possible climates of exoplanets. And here's why that's important: there are many factors besides distance from its star that control whether a planet can support life.

Open Cloze

On our planet, where there's _____, there's life. So we look for planets that _____ at just the right distance from their stars. At this distance, shown in blue on this _______ for stars of different temperatures, _______ could be warm enough for water to flow on their surfaces as lakes and oceans where life might reside. Some astronomers focus their time and energy on finding planets at these _________ from their stars. What I do picks up where their job ends. I model the possible climates of exoplanets. And here's why that's important: there are many factors besides distance from its star that control whether a planet can support life.

Solution

  1. planets
  2. distances
  3. water
  4. diagram
  5. orbit

Original Text

On our planet, where there's water, there's life. So we look for planets that orbit at just the right distance from their stars. At this distance, shown in blue on this diagram for stars of different temperatures, planets could be warm enough for water to flow on their surfaces as lakes and oceans where life might reside. Some astronomers focus their time and energy on finding planets at these distances from their stars. What I do picks up where their job ends. I model the possible climates of exoplanets. And here's why that's important: there are many factors besides distance from its star that control whether a planet can support life.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
life exists 2
light years 2
trillion miles 2
ice absorbs 2
planets orbiting 2

Important Words

  1. astronomers
  2. blue
  3. climates
  4. control
  5. diagram
  6. distance
  7. distances
  8. ends
  9. energy
  10. exoplanets
  11. factors
  12. finding
  13. flow
  14. focus
  15. job
  16. lakes
  17. life
  18. model
  19. oceans
  20. orbit
  21. picks
  22. planet
  23. planets
  24. reside
  25. shown
  26. star
  27. stars
  28. support
  29. surfaces
  30. temperatures
  31. time
  32. warm
  33. water