full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Elizabeth "Zibi" Turtle: What Saturn's most mysterious moon could teach us about the origins of life

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Shrouded by the obscuring haze, Titan's surface was a huge, outstanding mystery that Cassini-Huygens, an orbiter lnedar pair launched in 1997, was designed to solve. After arrival in 2004, the early images Cassini sent back of Titan's surface only heightened the allure. It took months for us to understand what we were seeing on the surface, to determine, for example, that the dark stripes, which were initially so ugielnobrncaze that we referred to them as cat stcearchs, were actually dunes made of organic sand.

Over the course of the 13 years Cassini senpt studying Saturn and its rings and moons, we had the privilege of going from knowing almost nothing about the surface of Titan to undnaiesndrtg its geology, the role the atmosphere plays in shaping its sacrufe, and even htnis of what lies deep beneath that surface.

Open Cloze


Shrouded by the obscuring haze, Titan's surface was a huge, outstanding mystery that Cassini-Huygens, an orbiter ______ pair launched in 1997, was designed to solve. After arrival in 2004, the early images Cassini sent back of Titan's surface only heightened the allure. It took months for us to understand what we were seeing on the surface, to determine, for example, that the dark stripes, which were initially so ______________ that we referred to them as cat _________, were actually dunes made of organic sand.

Over the course of the 13 years Cassini _____ studying Saturn and its rings and moons, we had the privilege of going from knowing almost nothing about the surface of Titan to _____________ its geology, the role the atmosphere plays in shaping its _______, and even _____ of what lies deep beneath that surface.

Solution


  1. spent
  2. surface
  3. scratches
  4. unrecognizable
  5. lander
  6. hints
  7. understanding

Original Text


Shrouded by the obscuring haze, Titan's surface was a huge, outstanding mystery that Cassini-Huygens, an orbiter lander pair launched in 1997, was designed to solve. After arrival in 2004, the early images Cassini sent back of Titan's surface only heightened the allure. It took months for us to understand what we were seeing on the surface, to determine, for example, that the dark stripes, which were initially so unrecognizable that we referred to them as cat scratches, were actually dunes made of organic sand.

Over the course of the 13 years Cassini spent studying Saturn and its rings and moons, we had the privilege of going from knowing almost nothing about the surface of Titan to understanding its geology, the role the atmosphere plays in shaping its surface, and even hints of what lies deep beneath that surface.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
solar system 3
liquid water 3
outer solar 2
ocean worlds 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
outer solar system 2

Important Words


  1. allure
  2. arrival
  3. atmosphere
  4. beneath
  5. cassini
  6. cat
  7. dark
  8. deep
  9. designed
  10. determine
  11. dunes
  12. early
  13. geology
  14. haze
  15. heightened
  16. hints
  17. huge
  18. images
  19. initially
  20. knowing
  21. lander
  22. launched
  23. lies
  24. months
  25. moons
  26. mystery
  27. obscuring
  28. orbiter
  29. organic
  30. outstanding
  31. pair
  32. plays
  33. privilege
  34. referred
  35. rings
  36. role
  37. sand
  38. saturn
  39. scratches
  40. shaping
  41. shrouded
  42. solve
  43. spent
  44. stripes
  45. studying
  46. surface
  47. titan
  48. understand
  49. understanding
  50. unrecognizable
  51. years