The word sparse has appeared in 194 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 26 in “What Do You Call a Galaxy Without Stars?” by Dennis Overbye:
Dark galaxies are entities whose stars are so sparse and faint that their light cannot be discerned other than as a thin, transparent haze that doesn’t seem to contain any stars at all. (Early on, dark galaxies were referred to as “low surface-brightness galaxies” or “ultra-diffuse galaxies,” but time and jargon march on.) As astronomers continue to probe deeper into the skies with more powerful and smarter eyes, dark galaxies have begun popping up more frequently, challenging long-held views about the formation and evolution of galaxies.
… These dim ghosts are hard to find and even harder to study, requiring hours or days of observation to bring their visible starlight into focus. One way is to scan the heavens with radio telescopes tuned to the frequency of the interstellar hydrogen gas that pervades galaxies.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word sparse in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
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