full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alex Hofeldt: How small are we in the scale of the universe?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


In the winter of 1995, scientists pniteod the Hubble Telescope at an area of the sky near the Big Dipper, a spot that was dark and out of the way of lhgit pollution from sdiurronnug stars. The location was apparently empty, and the whole endeavor was risky. What, if anything, was going to show up? Over ten consecutive days, the telescope took close to 150 hours of exposure of that same area. And what came back was nothing short of spectacular: an igame of over 1,500 distinct galaxies glimmering in a tiny sliver of the uiesrnve.

Now, let's take a step back to understand the scale of this image. If you were to take a ballpoint pen and hold it at arm's length in fnort of the night sky, fnosicug on its very tip, that is what the Hubble Telescope captured in its first Deep Field image. In other words, those 3,000 gleaiaxs were seen in just a tiny scpek of the universe, approximately one two-millionth of the night sky.

Open Cloze


In the winter of 1995, scientists _______ the Hubble Telescope at an area of the sky near the Big Dipper, a spot that was dark and out of the way of _____ pollution from ___________ stars. The location was apparently empty, and the whole endeavor was risky. What, if anything, was going to show up? Over ten consecutive days, the telescope took close to 150 hours of exposure of that same area. And what came back was nothing short of spectacular: an _____ of over 1,500 distinct galaxies glimmering in a tiny sliver of the ________.

Now, let's take a step back to understand the scale of this image. If you were to take a ballpoint pen and hold it at arm's length in _____ of the night sky, ________ on its very tip, that is what the Hubble Telescope captured in its first Deep Field image. In other words, those 3,000 ________ were seen in just a tiny _____ of the universe, approximately one two-millionth of the night sky.

Solution


  1. image
  2. light
  3. galaxies
  4. focusing
  5. pointed
  6. surrounding
  7. universe
  8. speck
  9. front

Original Text


In the winter of 1995, scientists pointed the Hubble Telescope at an area of the sky near the Big Dipper, a spot that was dark and out of the way of light pollution from surrounding stars. The location was apparently empty, and the whole endeavor was risky. What, if anything, was going to show up? Over ten consecutive days, the telescope took close to 150 hours of exposure of that same area. And what came back was nothing short of spectacular: an image of over 1,500 distinct galaxies glimmering in a tiny sliver of the universe.

Now, let's take a step back to understand the scale of this image. If you were to take a ballpoint pen and hold it at arm's length in front of the night sky, focusing on its very tip, that is what the Hubble Telescope captured in its first Deep Field image. In other words, those 3,000 galaxies were seen in just a tiny speck of the universe, approximately one two-millionth of the night sky.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
deep field 7
hubble telescope 3
field image 2
field images 2
billion years 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
deep field image 2
deep field images 2

Important Words


  1. apparently
  2. approximately
  3. area
  4. ballpoint
  5. big
  6. captured
  7. close
  8. consecutive
  9. dark
  10. days
  11. deep
  12. dipper
  13. distinct
  14. empty
  15. endeavor
  16. exposure
  17. field
  18. focusing
  19. front
  20. galaxies
  21. glimmering
  22. hold
  23. hours
  24. hubble
  25. image
  26. length
  27. light
  28. location
  29. night
  30. pen
  31. pointed
  32. pollution
  33. risky
  34. scale
  35. scientists
  36. short
  37. show
  38. sky
  39. sliver
  40. speck
  41. spot
  42. stars
  43. step
  44. surrounding
  45. telescope
  46. ten
  47. tiny
  48. tip
  49. understand
  50. universe
  51. winter
  52. words