Space Hangman

This page reaches beyond the sky: planets like SATURN and NEPTUNE, objects such as NEBULA, PULSAR and QUASAR, and the tools of astronomy, from the TELESCOPE to the SATELLITE and the SHUTTLE.

Space words love certain letters. A U turns up in SATURN, URANUS, PLUTO and NEBULA; an R helps with MARS, ROCKET and ORBIT. The rarer ones are worth knowing too: the Q in QUASAR, the X in GALAXY, the Z in ZENITH if it appears.

The shortest entries are SUN, UFO and STAR, which are over quickly if your first vowel lands. The longest, OBSERVATORY and PLANETARIUM, reveal themselves steadily once a few common letters are in place.

A handful of names come from mythology, like GEMINI and the planets themselves, so they don't always follow English spelling habits. If the vowels you expect keep missing, try I and U, which these older names use more than everyday words do.

Each round picks a new word at random. Play Easy with eight wrong guesses, or Hard with five.