10th form "A Message to the Stars" Grammar

1. Our planet Earth is one of nine planets _____ around the Sun, a fairly small and ordinary star, which lies in the outer areas of the Milky Way galaxy.

2. There are about 250 billion stars in our galaxy and billions of galaxies in the _____.

3. People have always rendered _____ the possibility of intelligent life forms on other planets.

4. In recent years this ____ serious scientific speculation.

5. Some scientists believe that there must be large numbers of stars with planets which could support ____ intelligent beings.

6. Perhaps we will never know. The nearest star is 4,3 light year ____.

7. A light year is the distance _____ by light travelling at about 186,000 miles a second in one year.

8. It would take the fastest Earth spacecraft about 40,000 years ____ the nearest star.

9. For a number of years, radio telescopes have been trying to pick up signals from outer space, so far ____ success.

10. There are, however, millions of possible radio frequencies, and there is no reason why a completelyalien civilization should not use a different type of communication, such as X-rays or even a type of wave we have not yet _____.

11. Suppose contacts ____ with beings 300 light years away.

12. By the time we had sent our reply and received their response, the Earth would be 600 years older. It would be an interesting but ____ slow-moving conversation!