How to Use ejecta in a Sentence

ejecta

noun
Definition of ejectanext
  • The red spot is an active volcano on Io, and the blue swoosh is the plume of ejecta reaching well above the moon's surface.
    — Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 19 Mar. 2012
  • In the images, ejecta from the impact can be seen stretching out as rays from the asteroid.
    — Jordan Mendoza, USA TODAY, 30 Sep. 2022
  • By the time of Hera’s arrival, at least four years after the crash, most of that ejecta will have long dissipated.
    — Rahul Rao, Popular Science, 14 Mar. 2023
  • Initially, as the bottle is uncorked, the gas mixture is partially blocked by the cork, so the ejecta can't reach the speed of sound.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 8 June 2022
  • Each of those layers of large rocks was probably deposited as space rocks hit the surface and filled the air with ejecta.
    — Eric Betz, Discover Magazine, 26 Feb. 2020
  • Some ejecta from volcanoes even fall back on the surfaces of other moons like Europa, a prime candidate in the search for life.
    — Joshua Sokol, New York Times, 26 June 2019
  • Masten Space Systems at one point proposed a higher-​volume approach, which would capture the icy ejecta from rocket blasts in a small dome.
    — Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, 8 May 2023
  • Some ejecta would move laterally, some would travel upward then fall back down up to 91 m from the impact site.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 24 June 2021
  • The area Zhurong will study first features large sand dunes and boulders, possible ejecta from nearby impact craters.
    — David Bressan, Forbes, 20 May 2021
  • Over the next three weeks, Hubble will continue to check in on Dimorphos 10 more times, monitoring how the ejecta clouds evolve and fade over time.
    — Jake Parks, Discover Magazine, 12 Oct. 2022
  • The more expensive development of Volcano Estates, and the town of Volcano, have been spared the effects of the new vents but may still be in the line of fire for ejecta if there's an explosion at the summit.
    — James Burch, National Geographic, 12 May 2018
  • But with an uneven surface, this shockwave becomes asymmetrical, causing the ejecta to clump in some areas and form rays that splay out from the impact zone.
    — Michelle Hampson, Discover Magazine, 2 Aug. 2018
  • Scientists are starting by studying the ejecta, boulders, and numerous smaller bits the strike cast off.
    — Ramin Skibba, WIRED, 30 Aug. 2023
  • Once released from the stern section, the bow fell to the ocean floor at a fairly steep angle, nosing into the mud with such massive force that its ejecta patterns are still visible on the seafloor today.
    — National Geographic, 22 Aug. 2019
  • That rapid spin would have briefly counteracted the gravitational collapse just long enough to produce a fast tail of heavy kilonova ejecta, which drove the shock wave.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 3 Mar. 2022
  • Initially, some of the ejecta would be moving at high velocity (bullet speeds).
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 24 June 2021
  • Even today, telescope images of the Didymos system still show how solar radiation pressure has stretched the ejecta stream into a comet-like tail tens of thousands of miles in length.
    — Ariana Garcia, Chron, 19 Dec. 2022
  • The ejecta curtain, or plume of material created by the impact, never fully detached from the surface, according to the study.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 19 Mar. 2020
  • Chabot and her colleagues published a study in Nature earlier this year, also using Hubble photos, imaging the ejecta.
    — Ramin Skibba, WIRED, 30 Aug. 2023
  • Nobody brought a thermometer, either, but ejecta of that sort can easily start its skyward journey at about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, which would have burned a pretty good hole through my shirt — and right down to bone.
    — New York Times, 18 Jan. 2018
  • And the glowing ejecta keep expanding out into space for millennia, dispersing the products.
    — Quanta Magazine, 23 Mar. 2017
  • It is not currently known what caused these engines to fail, but one possibility is that material from the destruction of the launch pad, called ejecta, could have damaged them.
    — Georgina Torbet, The Verge, 26 Apr. 2023
  • That can send ejecta into orbit at an angle that is only 2 or 3 degrees from a surface horizontal.
    — The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 31 May 2023
  • One problem is that the ejecta from lunar landings and launches could envelop the moon in a cloud of high-velocity dust particles that threaten other lunar missions.
    — The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 31 May 2023
  • They’re highly evolved, luminous, and surrounded by ejecta.
    — Ethan Siegel, Forbes, 14 June 2021
  • However, both ejecta and cratering are considered to be low risk because humans would have already been killed by the other effects of an asteroid impact.
    — Jasper Hamill, Fox News, 28 June 2018
  • Close inspection reveals 17 such spiral arms in the JWST image, with incomplete arcs marking older, colder and more distant ejecta.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 25 Oct. 2022
  • As that heavy ejecta decelerated over time, its kinetic energy was converted into heat by the shocks.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 3 Mar. 2022
  • And modelling suggests the planet would have been a pretty uncomfortable place for quite some time afterwards, with ejecta suspended in the atmosphere blotting out the sun, and acid rain changing the chemical composition of the oceans.
    — The Economist, 18 Jan. 2020
  • Hubble also saw water vapor erupting from Europa, shown here in an artist illustration with real images but enhanced ejecta.
    — Eric Betz, Discover Magazine, 14 May 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ejecta.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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