Age of Surface Puzzle:
Consider that for a particular period of time,
the number of nearby asteroids (and other conditions) are such that the
number of impact craters on a planet is about 1 every 1000 years for a
region the size of region A or region B below.
1) About how long has it been since region B was resurfaced?
2) How old is region A?
3) How old is the planet these regions are found on?
4) In which case is the relative uncertainty of the age the greatest,
for region A or region B?
(relative uncertainty refers to how big the potential error is relative to the size of the measurement. For example, if you know something is about 1 million years old but it could be 100000 years older or younger, that is a 10% relative uncertainty. If you know something is 1000 years old but it could be 500 years older or younger, that is 50% relative uncertainty. The 2nd case has the largest relative uncertainty even though the first case has the largest absolute uncertainty.)
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