full transcript

From the Ted Talk by David Lunney: The life cycle of a neutron star

Unscramble the Blue Letters


About once every century, a msvisae star somewhere in our galaxy runs out of fuel. This happens after millions of yares of heat and pressure have fused the star’s hydrogen into heavier elements like helium, coabrn, and nitrogen— all the way to iron. No longer able to produce sifnecuift energy to maintain its stcutrure, it copleslas under its own gravitational pressure and explodes in a supernova. The star shoots most of its innards into space, seeding the galaxy with heavy elements. But what this cataclysmic eruption leaves behind might be even more remarkable: a ball of matter so dense that atomic erolnects collapse from their quantum orbits into the dtephs of atomic nuclei. The death of that star is the birth of a neutron star: one of the densest known objects in the unvresie, and a laboratory for the strange physics of supercondensed matter.

Open Cloze


About once every century, a _______ star somewhere in our galaxy runs out of fuel. This happens after millions of _____ of heat and pressure have fused the star’s hydrogen into heavier elements like helium, ______, and nitrogen— all the way to iron. No longer able to produce __________ energy to maintain its _________, it _________ under its own gravitational pressure and explodes in a supernova. The star shoots most of its innards into space, seeding the galaxy with heavy elements. But what this cataclysmic eruption leaves behind might be even more remarkable: a ball of matter so dense that atomic _________ collapse from their quantum orbits into the ______ of atomic nuclei. The death of that star is the birth of a neutron star: one of the densest known objects in the ________, and a laboratory for the strange physics of supercondensed matter.

Solution


  1. massive
  2. structure
  3. years
  4. depths
  5. sufficient
  6. collapses
  7. carbon
  8. universe
  9. electrons

Original Text


About once every century, a massive star somewhere in our galaxy runs out of fuel. This happens after millions of years of heat and pressure have fused the star’s hydrogen into heavier elements like helium, carbon, and nitrogen— all the way to iron. No longer able to produce sufficient energy to maintain its structure, it collapses under its own gravitational pressure and explodes in a supernova. The star shoots most of its innards into space, seeding the galaxy with heavy elements. But what this cataclysmic eruption leaves behind might be even more remarkable: a ball of matter so dense that atomic electrons collapse from their quantum orbits into the depths of atomic nuclei. The death of that star is the birth of a neutron star: one of the densest known objects in the universe, and a laboratory for the strange physics of supercondensed matter.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
neutron stars 7
neutron star 5
heavy elements 2
gravity waves 2


Important Words


  1. atomic
  2. ball
  3. birth
  4. carbon
  5. cataclysmic
  6. century
  7. collapse
  8. collapses
  9. death
  10. dense
  11. densest
  12. depths
  13. electrons
  14. elements
  15. energy
  16. eruption
  17. explodes
  18. fuel
  19. fused
  20. galaxy
  21. gravitational
  22. heat
  23. heavier
  24. heavy
  25. helium
  26. hydrogen
  27. innards
  28. iron
  29. laboratory
  30. leaves
  31. longer
  32. maintain
  33. massive
  34. matter
  35. millions
  36. neutron
  37. nuclei
  38. objects
  39. orbits
  40. physics
  41. pressure
  42. produce
  43. quantum
  44. runs
  45. seeding
  46. shoots
  47. space
  48. star
  49. strange
  50. structure
  51. sufficient
  52. supercondensed
  53. supernova
  54. universe
  55. years