司法三等
105年
[檢察事務官營繕工程組] 法學知識與英文(包括中華民國憲法、法學緒論、英文)
第 47 題
📖 題組：
Some 66m years ago Earth was hit by a space rock reckoned to have been 10km across. The resulting chaos caused the extinction of dinosaurs and many other species, opening the way for the age of mammals－and ultimately humans. It also left a big hole in what is now southern Mexico. That hole is one of only three known of similar dimensions (the other two are Vredefort in South Africa and Sudbury in Canada). And this is odd. For, during the billions of years that Earth has had a solid crust, many more than three big asteroids might have been expected to have hit it. That thought led Brandon Johnson of the MIT and Timothy Bowling of Purdue University in Indiana, to wonder how many other craters have vanished, either by erosion or by being swallowed into Earth’s interior as its crust moves around, and therefore whether it is likely that some have survived and been overlooked. They have just published their analysis in Geology. Earth’s crust formed more than 4 billion years ago, but the oldest surviving blocks of it large enough to harbor craters date back only 3.5 billion years. What is known of the sizes and orbits of modern asteroids suggests that, if things have not changed over the aeons, about 14 big asteroids (defined as having a diameter of more than 7.4km, which would cause a crater at least 85km in diameter) should hit Earth every billion years. That means 49, give or take seven, over the past 3.5 billion years. Such impacts may have been more common in the past, when more big asteroids were around. Allowing for this, Earth would have been hit by 113, give or take 11, of them. Either way, a lot of craters are missing.
Some 66m years ago Earth was hit by a space rock reckoned to have been 10km across. The resulting chaos caused the extinction of dinosaurs and many other species, opening the way for the age of mammals－and ultimately humans. It also left a big hole in what is now southern Mexico. That hole is one of only three known of similar dimensions (the other two are Vredefort in South Africa and Sudbury in Canada). And this is odd. For, during the billions of years that Earth has had a solid crust, many more than three big asteroids might have been expected to have hit it. That thought led Brandon Johnson of the MIT and Timothy Bowling of Purdue University in Indiana, to wonder how many other craters have vanished, either by erosion or by being swallowed into Earth’s interior as its crust moves around, and therefore whether it is likely that some have survived and been overlooked. They have just published their analysis in Geology. Earth’s crust formed more than 4 billion years ago, but the oldest surviving blocks of it large enough to harbor craters date back only 3.5 billion years. What is known of the sizes and orbits of modern asteroids suggests that, if things have not changed over the aeons, about 14 big asteroids (defined as having a diameter of more than 7.4km, which would cause a crater at least 85km in diameter) should hit Earth every billion years. That means 49, give or take seven, over the past 3.5 billion years. Such impacts may have been more common in the past, when more big asteroids were around. Allowing for this, Earth would have been hit by 113, give or take 11, of them. Either way, a lot of craters are missing.
What can we infer about the missing craters?
- A They never left any impact on Earth.
- B They have not been completely eroded.
- C They were far more than the surviving ones.
- D They were hit by more than one asteroid.
思路引導 VIP
請試著思考：如果科學家根據物理規律算出某件事在歷史上應該發生過『一百多次』，但我們現在在地球表面卻只能點出『三個』實例，那麼根據這兩組數據的對比，你會如何描述那些『找不到的案例』在規模數量上的特徵？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你的邏輯分析非常精準！
- 大力肯定：能從大量的數據中梳理出核心邏輯，代表你的閱讀整合能力非常出色！這類推論題最考驗細心度，你做得很好。
- 觀念驗證：文章指出目前已知的大型隕石坑僅有 3 個。然而，根據科學家推算，35 億年來應有 $49 \pm 7$ 次撞擊，若考量早期環境，甚至可能高達 $113 \pm 11$ 次。既然已知只有 3 個，邏輯上便可推論：消失（未被發現）的數量遠多於現存的數量。
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