full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Tabetha Boyajian: The most mysterious star in the universe

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So back to our mystery. A few yares ago, Planet Hunters were sifting through data looking for transits, and they spotted a muyosierts sagnil coming from the star KIC 8462852. The observations in May of 2009 were the first they spotted, and they started talking about this in the discussion forums.

They said and object like jputeir would make a drop like this in the star's light, but they were also saying it was giant. You see, transits normally only last for a few hours, and this one lstaed for almost a week.

They were also saying that it looks asymmetric, meaning that instead of the cealn, U-shaped dip that we saw with Jupiter, it had this strange slope that you can see on the left side. This seemed to indicate that whatever was getting in the way and bnlkciog the starlight was not circular like a planet. There are few more dips that happened, but for a couple of years, it was pretty quiet.

Open Cloze


So back to our mystery. A few _____ ago, Planet Hunters were sifting through data looking for transits, and they spotted a __________ ______ coming from the star KIC 8462852. The observations in May of 2009 were the first they spotted, and they started talking about this in the discussion forums.

They said and object like _______ would make a drop like this in the star's light, but they were also saying it was giant. You see, transits normally only last for a few hours, and this one ______ for almost a week.

They were also saying that it looks asymmetric, meaning that instead of the _____, U-shaped dip that we saw with Jupiter, it had this strange slope that you can see on the left side. This seemed to indicate that whatever was getting in the way and ________ the starlight was not circular like a planet. There are few more dips that happened, but for a couple of years, it was pretty quiet.

Solution


  1. mysterious
  2. years
  3. jupiter
  4. blocking
  5. lasted
  6. signal
  7. clean

Original Text


So back to our mystery. A few years ago, Planet Hunters were sifting through data looking for transits, and they spotted a mysterious signal coming from the star KIC 8462852. The observations in May of 2009 were the first they spotted, and they started talking about this in the discussion forums.

They said and object like Jupiter would make a drop like this in the star's light, but they were also saying it was giant. You see, transits normally only last for a few hours, and this one lasted for almost a week.

They were also saying that it looks asymmetric, meaning that instead of the clean, U-shaped dip that we saw with Jupiter, it had this strange slope that you can see on the left side. This seemed to indicate that whatever was getting in the way and blocking the starlight was not circular like a planet. There are few more dips that happened, but for a couple of years, it was pretty quiet.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
kepler data 3
planet hunters 3
citizen scientists 3
astronomers call 2
light curve 2
percent drop 2
science team 2
alien megastructures 2
dyson spheres 2


Important Words


  1. asymmetric
  2. blocking
  3. circular
  4. clean
  5. coming
  6. couple
  7. data
  8. dip
  9. dips
  10. discussion
  11. drop
  12. forums
  13. giant
  14. happened
  15. hours
  16. hunters
  17. jupiter
  18. kic
  19. lasted
  20. left
  21. light
  22. meaning
  23. mysterious
  24. mystery
  25. object
  26. observations
  27. planet
  28. pretty
  29. quiet
  30. side
  31. sifting
  32. signal
  33. slope
  34. spotted
  35. star
  36. starlight
  37. started
  38. strange
  39. talking
  40. transits
  41. week
  42. years