Consonants Corner No. 70
SPOILER ALERT! Scroll down to learn more about each of the words in today’s theme: Words and terms related to space and astrophysics!

By Consonants team
Nov. 12 2024

Hello world…or should we say Hello Universe! Today’s theme is about the words or terms that are related to space or that are used in astrophysics.

Be warned, the hints and words in the puzzles will be revealed and you can learn more about each of the terms and some helpful links to dive deeper! Scroll at your own risk!

We release a new theme and corresponding set of words each day at midnight so do come back to our main puzzle page at www.consonants21.com tomorrow for another brain teaser puzzle!

Share your thoughts, post your share grid results, discuss and learn more about the theme and individual words in the comments section with fellow Consonants enthusiasts! Please do share ideas for new themes and contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in becoming a guest contributor!

Today’s hints
Hint #1

They have a nucleus, a coma, a tail and an ion tail!

Hint #2

Newton’s apple attraction!

Hint #3

Not even light is allowed to escape from here!

Today’s words and additional information!
Word # 1

Comets are frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system composed of dust, rock, and ices. They range from a few miles to tens of miles wide, but as they orbit closer to the Sun, they heat up and spew gases and dust into a glowing head that can be larger than a planet.

Fun fact: Haley’s comet returns to Earth every 75 years. It was last seen in 1986 and is expected to return in 2061!

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Word # 2

Galaxies consist of stars, planets, and vast clouds of gas and dust, all bound together by gravity. The largest contain trillions of stars and can be more than a million light-years across.

Fun fact: We are part of the Milky Way Galaxy and contains about 200 billion stars!

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Word # 3

The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that’s divided into 12 equal parts, or signs, that correspond to constellations. The zodiac is a key part of astrology, the belief system that celestial bodies’ positions relate to events on Earth.

Fun fact: The constellation Ophiuchus is considered the unofficial 13th sign of the zodiac. If you were born between November 30 and December 18, the sun was likely in Ophiuchus.

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Word # 4

A quasar is a rare, extremely luminous, and distant supermassive black hole that emits intense radiation. The extreme gravitational and frictional forces in the disk cause the gas and dust to heat up and emit electromagnetic radiation across the entire spectrum.

Fun fact: Quasars give off more energy than 100 normal galaxies combined.

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Word # 5

A planet is a celestial body that orbits a star and meets the following criteria:
Mass: It has enough mass for its gravity to create a round shape
Orbit: It orbits a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf
Neighborhood: It has cleared its orbit of smaller objects
Fun fact: Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun. Mercury is hot, but not too hot for ice!

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Word # 6

Gravity is a force of attraction between objects that have mass. The force of gravity is stronger for objects with more mass and weaker for objects with less mass. The force of gravity also decreases with distance, meaning that objects that are closer together have a stronger gravitational pull.

Fun fact: Gravity is by far the weakest force we know and yet gravity is what holds galaxies together!

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Word # 7

A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can get out, people can’t see black holes. They are invisible.

Fun fact: If you were to fall into a stellar-sized black hole, the intense gravitational pull would stretch you out so much that you would essentially become like spaghetti, a phenomenon called “spaghettification.”

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Word # 8

A dwarf star is a star with a relatively low luminosity, mass, and size. They can range in color from blue to red, and in temperature from above 10,000 K to a few thousand K.

Fun fact: The heaviest red dwarfs have lifetimes of tens of billions of years; the smallest have lifetimes of trillions of years.Stars such as the Sun have a lifetime of 10 billion years.

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Word # 9

A jet stream is a narrow band of strong winds that blow from west to east in the upper atmosphere, usually around 30,000 feet (9,100 meters) above the Earth.

Fun fact: Jet streams can reach speeds of over 275 miles per hour.

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