full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Karen J. Meech: The story of 'Oumuamua, the first visitor from another star system

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Whatever it is, we believe it's a natural object, but we can't actually prove that it's not something artificial. The color, the strange shape, the tumbling motion could all have other explanations. Now while we don't believe this is alien technology, why not do the obvious experiment and search for a radio signal? That's exactly what the bhrgretoakuh Listen proecjt did, but so far, 'Oumuamua has remained completely quiet.

Now could we send a spacecraft to 'Oumuamua and aeswnr this question once and for all? Yes, we do actually have the togcohnley, but it would be a long and expensive voyage, and we would get there so far from the Sun that the final aocpprah trajectory would be very difficult.

Open Cloze


Whatever it is, we believe it's a natural object, but we can't actually prove that it's not something artificial. The color, the strange shape, the tumbling motion could all have other explanations. Now while we don't believe this is alien technology, why not do the obvious experiment and search for a radio signal? That's exactly what the ____________ Listen _______ did, but so far, 'Oumuamua has remained completely quiet.

Now could we send a spacecraft to 'Oumuamua and ______ this question once and for all? Yes, we do actually have the __________, but it would be a long and expensive voyage, and we would get there so far from the Sun that the final ________ trajectory would be very difficult.

Solution


  1. breakthrough
  2. approach
  3. answer
  4. technology
  5. project

Original Text


Whatever it is, we believe it's a natural object, but we can't actually prove that it's not something artificial. The color, the strange shape, the tumbling motion could all have other explanations. Now while we don't believe this is alien technology, why not do the obvious experiment and search for a radio signal? That's exactly what the Breakthrough Listen project did, but so far, 'Oumuamua has remained completely quiet.

Now could we send a spacecraft to 'Oumuamua and answer this question once and for all? Yes, we do actually have the technology, but it would be a long and expensive voyage, and we would get there so far from the Sun that the final approach trajectory would be very difficult.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
solar system 15
big deal 2
axis ratio 2
home solar 2
planetary material 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
home solar system 2

Important Words


  1. alien
  2. answer
  3. approach
  4. artificial
  5. breakthrough
  6. color
  7. completely
  8. difficult
  9. expensive
  10. experiment
  11. explanations
  12. final
  13. listen
  14. long
  15. motion
  16. natural
  17. object
  18. obvious
  19. project
  20. prove
  21. question
  22. quiet
  23. radio
  24. remained
  25. search
  26. send
  27. shape
  28. signal
  29. spacecraft
  30. strange
  31. sun
  32. technology
  33. trajectory
  34. tumbling
  35. voyage