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Mars Sample Return Issues and Recommendations (1997) / Chapter Skim
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3 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MARTIAN METEORITES
Pages 17-18

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From page 17...
... Because meteorites resemble terrestrial rocks, they generally are recovered only when recovery is favored by special circumstances, such as their having been observed to fall or their landing on the Antarctic ice sheet. A question of major importance with respect to back contamination is whether putative martian organisms could survive ejection from Mars, transit to 17
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From page 18...
... Cosmic-ray exposure ages of the meteorites in current collections indicate transit times of 0.35 million to 16 million years (McSween,1994~. However, theoretical modeling suggests that about 1 percent of any material ejected from Mars should be captured by Earth within 16,000 years and that 0.01 percent would reach Earth within 100 years (Gladman et al., 1996~.
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Key Terms

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  • frequent delivery
  • collections indicate
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  • current collections
  • ice sheet

  • thermally labile
  • meteorites named
  • martian rocks
  • meteorites indeed
  • essentially unaltered

  • meteorites indicates
  • considerable analysis
  • viable terrestrial
  • exposure ages
  • meteorites recovered

  • indicate transit
  • meteorites onto
  • total meteorites
  • special circumstances
  • labile minerals


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