full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Jill Seubert: How a miniaturized atomic clock could revolutionize space exploration

Unscramble the Blue Letters


But there is good news: we are making some amazing progress, and we're about to take our very first baby steps into a new age of amtioc space clocks. Soon we will be launching an ion-based atomic clock that is space-suitable. And this ccolk has the potential to completely flip the way we navigate. This clock is so stable, it measures time so well, that if I put it right here and I turned it on, and I walked away, I would have to come back nine mililon yaers later for that clock's measurement to be off by one second.

So what can we do with a clock like this? Well, instead of doing all of the spacecraft navigation here on the Earth, what if we let the spacecraft naaigvte themselves? Onboard autonomous nitgoavain, or a self-driving spacecraft, if you will, is one of the top tleghneooics needed if we are going to survive in deep space. When we inevitably send humans to Mars or even further, we need to be navigating that ship in real time, not waiting for directions to come from Earth. And mnuesarig that time wrong by just a tiny fraction of a second can mean the difference between a mission's life or death, which is bad enough for a rootibc mission, but just think about the consequences if there was a hmuan crew on board.

Open Cloze


But there is good news: we are making some amazing progress, and we're about to take our very first baby steps into a new age of ______ space clocks. Soon we will be launching an ion-based atomic clock that is space-suitable. And this _____ has the potential to completely flip the way we navigate. This clock is so stable, it measures time so well, that if I put it right here and I turned it on, and I walked away, I would have to come back nine _______ _____ later for that clock's measurement to be off by one second.

So what can we do with a clock like this? Well, instead of doing all of the spacecraft navigation here on the Earth, what if we let the spacecraft ________ themselves? Onboard autonomous __________, or a self-driving spacecraft, if you will, is one of the top ____________ needed if we are going to survive in deep space. When we inevitably send humans to Mars or even further, we need to be navigating that ship in real time, not waiting for directions to come from Earth. And _________ that time wrong by just a tiny fraction of a second can mean the difference between a mission's life or death, which is bad enough for a _______ mission, but just think about the consequences if there was a _____ crew on board.

Solution


  1. atomic
  2. million
  3. human
  4. measuring
  5. technologies
  6. years
  7. navigation
  8. clock
  9. robotic
  10. navigate

Original Text


But there is good news: we are making some amazing progress, and we're about to take our very first baby steps into a new age of atomic space clocks. Soon we will be launching an ion-based atomic clock that is space-suitable. And this clock has the potential to completely flip the way we navigate. This clock is so stable, it measures time so well, that if I put it right here and I turned it on, and I walked away, I would have to come back nine million years later for that clock's measurement to be off by one second.

So what can we do with a clock like this? Well, instead of doing all of the spacecraft navigation here on the Earth, what if we let the spacecraft navigate themselves? Onboard autonomous navigation, or a self-driving spacecraft, if you will, is one of the top technologies needed if we are going to survive in deep space. When we inevitably send humans to Mars or even further, we need to be navigating that ship in real time, not waiting for directions to come from Earth. And measuring that time wrong by just a tiny fraction of a second can mean the difference between a mission's life or death, which is bad enough for a robotic mission, but just think about the consequences if there was a human crew on board.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
deep space 11
million miles 3
signal time 3
tiny fraction 3
insight lander 2
cube sets 2
supporting hardware 2
atomic clock 2
clock technology 2
onboard autonomous 2


Important Words


  1. age
  2. amazing
  3. atomic
  4. autonomous
  5. baby
  6. bad
  7. board
  8. clock
  9. clocks
  10. completely
  11. consequences
  12. crew
  13. death
  14. deep
  15. difference
  16. directions
  17. earth
  18. flip
  19. fraction
  20. good
  21. human
  22. humans
  23. inevitably
  24. launching
  25. life
  26. making
  27. mars
  28. measurement
  29. measures
  30. measuring
  31. million
  32. mission
  33. navigate
  34. navigating
  35. navigation
  36. needed
  37. onboard
  38. potential
  39. progress
  40. put
  41. real
  42. robotic
  43. send
  44. ship
  45. space
  46. spacecraft
  47. stable
  48. steps
  49. survive
  50. technologies
  51. time
  52. tiny
  53. top
  54. turned
  55. waiting
  56. walked
  57. wrong
  58. years