Something is explained when that concept can be reproduced in mind using thought.

Words lack true explanatory power so I appriciate the confusion.

You cannot say what you can think, you cannot say the star population that you see but you can I think, think it, or conceptualize it in a manner where it's understood.

No matter how you phrase it, you cannot make prediction into explanation. — Metaphysician Undercover

To be clear, I understand that we have some vague notion of genuine explanation. I think that if we analyze that concept, it cashes out in prediction-control and a kind of emotional satisfaction involving at least the linking of the unfamiliar to the familiar. IMV the familiar itself is unexplained and reality as a whole is inexplicable in principle --given that parts are explained in terms of systematic wholes that include them. The whole or totality of what is has nothing outside it to work as an explanation for it. This suggests to me that the big dream of philosophy is long dead. Humans are metaphor-soaked button-pushers, and their decisions are made in twilight.