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

Unscramble the Blue Letters

We don't know what the atmospheres of these planets are like because the planets are so small and dim compared to their stars and so far away from us. For example, one of the cssolet planets that could support sracufe water — it's called Gliese 667 Cc — such a glamorous name, right, nice pohne number for a name — it's 23 lhigt years away. So that's more than 100 trillion miles. Trying to musreae the atmospheric composition of an exoplanet passing in front of its host star is hard. It's like trying to see a fruit fly pnsasig in front of a car's headlight. OK, now iimgnae that car is 100 trillion miles away, and you want to know the precise color of that fly.

Open Cloze

We don't know what the atmospheres of these planets are like because the planets are so small and dim compared to their stars and so far away from us. For example, one of the _______ planets that could support _______ water — it's called Gliese 667 Cc — such a glamorous name, right, nice _____ number for a name — it's 23 _____ years away. So that's more than 100 trillion miles. Trying to _______ the atmospheric composition of an exoplanet passing in front of its host star is hard. It's like trying to see a fruit fly _______ in front of a car's headlight. OK, now _______ that car is 100 trillion miles away, and you want to know the precise color of that fly.

Solution

  1. closest
  2. light
  3. imagine
  4. phone
  5. surface
  6. passing
  7. measure

Original Text

We don't know what the atmospheres of these planets are like because the planets are so small and dim compared to their stars and so far away from us. For example, one of the closest planets that could support surface water — it's called Gliese 667 Cc — such a glamorous name, right, nice phone number for a name — it's 23 light years away. So that's more than 100 trillion miles. Trying to measure the atmospheric composition of an exoplanet passing in front of its host star is hard. It's like trying to see a fruit fly passing in front of a car's headlight. OK, now imagine that car is 100 trillion miles away, and you want to know the precise color of that fly.

Important Words

  1. atmospheres
  2. atmospheric
  3. called
  4. car
  5. cc
  6. closest
  7. color
  8. compared
  9. composition
  10. dim
  11. exoplanet
  12. fly
  13. front
  14. fruit
  15. glamorous
  16. gliese
  17. hard
  18. headlight
  19. host
  20. imagine
  21. light
  22. measure
  23. miles
  24. nice
  25. number
  26. passing
  27. phone
  28. planets
  29. precise
  30. small
  31. star
  32. stars
  33. support
  34. surface
  35. trillion
  36. water
  37. years