Astronomical

Didier V.
30 words 5 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

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  1. white dwarf
    a faint star of enormous density
    Meanwhile, the sunlike star aged in the normal way, eventually swelling, blowing off its outer layers and collapsing to the white hot ember known as a white dwarf star.
  2. radio wave
    an electromagnetic wave with a wavelength between 0.5 cm to 30,000 m
    But if it's a bit smaller, it turns into a whirling neutron star whose intense magnetic field generates a beacon of radio waves that sweeps across the universe like the beam of a lighthouse — in this case, flashing more than 10,000 times every minute.
  3. neutron
    a subatomic particle with zero charge
    But if it's a bit smaller, it turns into a whirling neutron star whose intense magnetic field generates a beacon of radio waves that sweeps across the universe like the beam of a lighthouse — in this case, flashing more than 10,000 times every minute.
  4. planet
    a celestial body that revolves around the sun
    Still, a paper just published in Science seems to teeter on the edge of utter fantasy: 20 quadrillion miles away lies a star more massive than the sun but only 15 miles across, spinning around more than 100 times a second — and orbiting that star is a diamond the size, not of a mere luxury hotel, but of the planet Jupiter.
  5. magnetic field
    the lines of force surrounding a permanent magnet or a moving charged particle
    But if it's a bit smaller, it turns into a whirling neutron star whose intense magnetic field generates a beacon of radio waves that sweeps across the universe like the beam of a lighthouse — in this case, flashing more than 10,000 times every minute.
  6. astronomer
    a physicist who studies celestial bodies and the universe
    Surprisingly, perhaps, most of that story is old news to astronomers.
  7. gravitational
    of or relating to or caused by gravitation
    The gravitational pull of, say, a planet, will make the radio flashes arrive closer together, then farther apart, then closer, in a regularly changing rhythm.
  8. black hole
    a region of space resulting from the collapse of a star
    If what's left over weighs more than three times as much as the sun, it collapses forever, forming a black hole.
  9. orbit
    the path of a celestial body in its revolution about another
    Still, a paper just published in Science seems to teeter on the edge of utter fantasy: 20 quadrillion miles away lies a star more massive than the sun but only 15 miles across, spinning around more than 100 times a second — and orbiting that star is a diamond the size, not of a mere luxury hotel, but of the planet Jupiter.
  10. Milky Way
    the galaxy containing the solar system
    The discovery also raises the question of whether there are other diamond planets studding the Milky Way like jewels on a tiara.
  11. Jupiter
    supreme god of Romans; counterpart of Greek Zeus
    Still, a paper just published in Science seems to teeter on the edge of utter fantasy: 20 quadrillion miles away lies a star more massive than the sun but only 15 miles across, spinning around more than 100 times a second — and orbiting that star is a diamond the size, not of a mere luxury hotel, but of the planet Jupiter.
  12. Pluto
    the god of the underworld in ancient mythology
    But when the International Astronomical Union created its formal definition of the word planet in 2006 — and demoted Pluto by doing it — there was nothing in the fine print about how the object had formed.
  13. carbon
    an abundant nonmetallic element in all organic compounds
    The neutron star's gravity would now be so powerful that the white dwarf star would lose even more layers, leaving behind only its inner core — about the mass of Jupiter and most likely made largely of oxygen and carbon, two elements that are forged in the nuclear fires at the heart of an aging star.
  14. solar system
    the sun with the celestial bodies that revolve around it
    In fact, the first planets ever discovered beyond our solar system were found this way in 1992, but thanks to the intense radiation coming off a pulsar, there's no chance life could exist on them.
  15. crystalline
    consisting of or containing or of the nature of crystals
    And because a Jupiter's worth of carbon would have a pretty powerful gravity of its own, it would almost certainly have crushed itself into crystalline form — in other words, diamond.
  16. aging
    the organic process of growing older
    The neutron star's gravity would now be so powerful that the white dwarf star would lose even more layers, leaving behind only its inner core — about the mass of Jupiter and most likely made largely of oxygen and carbon, two elements that are forged in the nuclear fires at the heart of an aging star.
  17. spiral
    something wound in a continuous series of loops
    The sun itself — or its white dwarf corpse, anyway — could have spiraled in as well, eventually coming in so close that its "year" was only a little more than two hours long.
  18. radiation
    the act of spreading outward from a central source
    In fact, the first planets ever discovered beyond our solar system were found this way in 1992, but thanks to the intense radiation coming off a pulsar, there's no chance life could exist on them.
  19. astronomy
    the branch of physics that studies celestial bodies
    All of this has long since become a standard part of astronomy textbooks.
  20. universe
    everything that exists anywhere
    But the universe is a vast and strange place, where all sorts of seemingly impossible things happen routinely.
  21. magnetic
    of or relating to or caused by attraction for iron
    But if it's a bit smaller, it turns into a whirling neutron star whose intense magnetic field generates a beacon of radio waves that sweeps across the universe like the beam of a lighthouse — in this case, flashing more than 10,000 times every minute.
  22. variation
    the process of being or becoming different
    They've also found that slight variations in the timing of the pulses can be indirect evidence for objects orbiting a pulsar.
  23. solar
    relating to the sun or utilizing the energies of the sun
    In fact, the first planets ever discovered beyond our solar system were found this way in 1992, but thanks to the intense radiation coming off a pulsar, there's no chance life could exist on them.
  24. percentage
    a proportion in relation to a whole
    "We can't uniquely say what percentage of the planet would be diamond," says Bailes, since the details of the process aren't absolutely clear.
  25. standard
    a basis for comparison
    All of this has long since become a standard part of astronomy textbooks.
  26. science
    a branch of study or knowledge involving the observation, investigation, and discovery of general laws or truths that can be tested systematically
    Fitzgerald wasn't a science-fiction writer, so he didn't have to explain how such a thing could possibly exist.
  27. nuclear
    constituting the core or central part
    The neutron star's gravity would now be so powerful that the white dwarf star would lose even more layers, leaving behind only its inner core — about the mass of Jupiter and most likely made largely of oxygen and carbon, two elements that are forged in the nuclear fires at the heart of an aging star.
  28. normal
    being approximately average or within certain limits
    Meanwhile, the sunlike star aged in the normal way, eventually swelling, blowing off its outer layers and collapsing to the white hot ember known as a white dwarf star.
  29. element
    a substance that cannot be separated into simpler substances
    The neutron star's gravity would now be so powerful that the white dwarf star would lose even more layers, leaving behind only its inner core — about the mass of Jupiter and most likely made largely of oxygen and carbon, two elements that are forged in the nuclear fires at the heart of an aging star.
  30. series
    similar things placed in order or one after another
    Nobody could imagine a natural force that could generate such a rapid, precisely timed series of radio blasts.
Created on Wed Aug 31 09:54:08 EDT 2011

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