Why Do We Believe the SNC Meteorites Came from Mars

question 539

Multiple Choice

Why do we believe the SNC meteorites came from Mars?

• A) They were brought back by the return voyage of the Mars Pathfinder mission.
• B) Their fall to Earth was tracked by radar, so it was possible to reconstruct their trajectories.
• C) Radioactive minerals in the rocks allow us to date them from approximately the same time as similar layers on Mars.
• D) Trapped pockets of air in the rocks show compositions which match Martian atmospheric samples taken by the Mars landers.

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Definitions:

Chi-square Test of Independence

A statistical analysis aimed at identifying a meaningful relationship between two variables that can be categorized.

Quantitative Variables

Variables that represent measurable quantities and can take on numerical values.

Chi-Square Test

A statistical method to assess the differences between categorical variables in a contingency table, comparing observed frequencies to expected frequencies.

Degrees of Freedom

The number of independent values or quantities which can be assigned to a statistical distribution.