English Speaking Club-Osvita, Meeting #448 "Space and the Universe"
Time: March 7, 18:30 - 20:00
Place: Voskeresenska St. 23, Department of Documents in Foreign Languages, Dnipro Central Municipal Library
Space and the Universe
Vocabulary
Unfathomable: too strange or mysterious to be understood
Constellation: A group of stars that can be seen as a pattern from Earth.
Black Hole: an area in outer space into which everything near it, including light, is pulled in
Asteroid: Small, rocky object orbiting the Sun.
Meteoroid: A small chunk of rock from an asteroid which orbits the Sun.
Solar eclipse: When the moon's orbit comes between the earth and the sun and it looks like the sun is blacked out.
Lunar eclipse: When the earth prevents sunlight from reaching the moon.
Idioms
The sky is the limit – When people say that the sky is the limit, they think that there are no limits to the possibilities something could have.
Once in a blue moon - When something happens once in a blue moon, it very rarely happens.
"Since my daughter was born, I only go out with my friends once in a blue moon."
"My brother is so good at chess I only beat him once in a blue moon."
(Living) on another planet - When you say that someone is living on another planet, you are saying either they do not notice what is happening around them or they are not realistic.
"He's living on another planet if he thinks he's going to get £5000 for his old car."
"She wasn't listening to me at all. Sometimes I think she's living on another planet."
Come back down to earth - We come back down to earth when we have to start doing something boring/not fun after doing something fun.
"I came back down to earth on my first Monday back in work after my holiday in Spain."
"She came back down to earth when she got back after the weekend to find she had so many work emails to answer."
Under the sun - Everything under the sun is everything that exists or is possible:
"We stayed up all night talking. We must have talked about everything under the sun."
"She's very intelligent and knowledgeable. She can talk about everything under the sun."
Over the moon - When you are over the moon, you are very happy about something. This expression is used but these days it is considered a cliché (a phrase or an idea that has been used so often that it no longer has much meaning and is not interesting).
"I was over the moon to find out my wife's pregnant."
"He was over the moon with his IELTS score."
Conversation Questions
- What was the most amazing fact you learned about the universe?
- Why do you find it amazing?
- Are you interested in the universe?
- What are some of the mysteries of the universe that you would like to know about?
- Why are scientists so interested in finding out about the universe?
- Would you like to go to the moon or travel into space?
- Would you be afraid to travel into space?
- Would you like to experience the feeling of being without gravity?
- What do you think would be the most exciting aspect of space travel?
- Do you think astronauts have a difficult job?
- Do you think it would get boring in space?
- Do you agree with government’s spending billions of dollars on space exploration?
- Do you think space tourism could become the next big industry?
- Do you think that eventually earth will become uninhabitable and human beings will be forced to populate another planet?
- Do you think the universe has an end?
- When do you think people will visit Mars?
- Do you think it is possible that humans could ever live on Mars?
- Have you ever been to an observatory? What did you see?
- Do you think life exists on other planets?
- Do you think earth is visited by extra-terrestrials in UFOs?
- Do you think there is risk of planet earth being hit by asteroid?
- Do you think NASA knows more than they tell us?
- Do you think that many people have a fear of our inability to control factors in the universe?
- Have you ever seen a solar eclipse?
