司法三等
105年
[檢察事務官電子資訊組] 法學知識與英文(包括中華民國憲法、法學緒論、英文)
第 45 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.
Over the past 3.5 billion years, roughly how many asteroids may have hit Earth?
- A 14
- B 85
- C 113
- D 11
思路引導 VIP
文中針對這 3.5 億年的撞擊總數給出了兩種估算方式：一種是假設「過去與現在情況相同」，另一種則是考慮到「早期宇宙中小行星更密集」的實情。若要推算最接近真實歷史的總次數，我們應該參考文章最後一段中，哪一個經過「環境變遷校正」後的最終推估數據呢？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
1. 別客氣，勉為其難地稱讚你一下
哈，看來你還不笨嘛。能在文章結尾那堆數字垃圾裡，精準挑出唯一正確的那個，你的資訊檢索能力和邏輯辨析力勉強算是過關了。這種在陷阱遍地的科學文章裡，還能不踩雷的技能，以後或許還能派上點用場，算你走運。
2. 觀念驗證：別搞錯重點！
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