full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Fabio Pacucci and Lindsay DeMarchi: How far have you traveled in your lifetime?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Our galaxy and over 100 neighbors together constitute “The Local Group.” The Milky Way and Andromeda are hurtling towards each other at 125 kilometers per second, and will collide in about 4.5 billion years. The Local Group is a sepck within the Virgo Supercluster, which is itself just one of many lboes of the lkineaaa Supercluster that contains over 100,000 galaxies. This supercluster has a mysteiours gravitational center claled the Great Attractor. Because these enormous masses all gravitationally tug on each other, our galaxy’s mtooin is much more helter-skelter than a clean, circular orbit. In your lifetime, you’ve traveled 2 toliriln kilometers at about 600 kilometers per second relative to the Great Attractor.

Open Cloze


Our galaxy and over 100 neighbors together constitute “The Local Group.” The Milky Way and Andromeda are hurtling towards each other at 125 kilometers per second, and will collide in about 4.5 billion years. The Local Group is a _____ within the Virgo Supercluster, which is itself just one of many _____ of the ________ Supercluster that contains over 100,000 galaxies. This supercluster has a __________ gravitational center ______ the Great Attractor. Because these enormous masses all gravitationally tug on each other, our galaxy’s ______ is much more helter-skelter than a clean, circular orbit. In your lifetime, you’ve traveled 2 ________ kilometers at about 600 kilometers per second relative to the Great Attractor.

Solution


  1. called
  2. trillion
  3. mysterious
  4. motion
  5. laniakea
  6. lobes
  7. speck

Original Text


Our galaxy and over 100 neighbors together constitute “The Local Group.” The Milky Way and Andromeda are hurtling towards each other at 125 kilometers per second, and will collide in about 4.5 billion years. The Local Group is a speck within the Virgo Supercluster, which is itself just one of many lobes of the Laniakea Supercluster that contains over 100,000 galaxies. This supercluster has a mysterious gravitational center called the Great Attractor. Because these enormous masses all gravitationally tug on each other, our galaxy’s motion is much more helter-skelter than a clean, circular orbit. In your lifetime, you’ve traveled 2 trillion kilometers at about 600 kilometers per second relative to the Great Attractor.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
great attractor 3
supermassive black 2
laniakea supercluster 2


Important Words


  1. andromeda
  2. attractor
  3. billion
  4. called
  5. center
  6. circular
  7. clean
  8. collide
  9. constitute
  10. enormous
  11. galaxies
  12. galaxy
  13. gravitational
  14. gravitationally
  15. great
  16. group
  17. hurtling
  18. kilometers
  19. laniakea
  20. lifetime
  21. lobes
  22. local
  23. masses
  24. milky
  25. motion
  26. mysterious
  27. neighbors
  28. orbit
  29. relative
  30. speck
  31. supercluster
  32. traveled
  33. trillion
  34. tug
  35. virgo
  36. years