Question

The rock that sprang to Martian "life" late last summer
did not shock me by offering up apparent fossils of an extinct
alien form of life. I had long believed that the universe teems
with life elsewhere, and that our failure to find it simply
results from a lack of exploration. What did amaze me about (Line5)
the potato-size rock that fell from Mars was that it had trav-
eled millions of miles across space to land here, blasted
from world to world by a planetary collision of the sort that
purportedly killed off our dinosaurs, and had lain waiting
for millennia upon an Antarctic ice field, until an observant (Line10)
young woman traveling in an expedition party picked it up,
because she figured that it had come from another world.
How could she know such a thing?

The composition of ALH 84001, as the much scruti-
nized rock is designated, closely matches the makeup (Line15)
of Martian matter that was analyzed on site in 1976 by
miniature chemistry laboratories aboard two Viking
Mars landers. As a result of this positive identification,
no astronomer seriously doubts the meteorite's Martian
origin. Researchers think they have pinpointed its former (Line20)
resting place to just two possible sites — a region called
Sinus Sabaeus, fourteen degrees south of the Martian
equator, or a crater east of the Hesperia Planitia region.
The bold precision of this assessment is for me the most
stunning surprise dealt by the rock from Mars— even more (Line25)
mind-boggling than the suggestive traces of something that
might once have lived and died in its microscopic fissures.

I cannot resist comparing this new intimacy with our solar
system to the shoebox diorama of the planets I designed for
my grade-school science fair. I used marbles, jack balls, (Line30)
and Ping-Pong balls, all hanging on strings and painted
different colors, all inside a box representing our solar
system. This crude assortment of materials allowed a
reasonable representation of what was known 40 years
ago about the nine planets: Mars was red and had two (Line35)
moons; Jupiter dwarfed the other planets (I should have
used a basketball but it wouldn't fit in the box); Saturn
had rings. If my school-age daughter were to attempt such
a construction today, she'd need handfuls of jelly beans
and gumballs to model the newly discovered satellites of (Line40)
the giant planets. She'd want rings around Jupiter, Uranus,
Neptune, too, not to mention a moon for Pluto.

Similarly, our solar system, once considered unique,
now stands as merely the first known example of a
planetary system in our galaxy. Since October of 1995, (Line45)
astronomers at ground-based observatories in Europe
and the United States have announced that they've found
evidence of at least seven alien planets orbiting other stars.

As yet, not one of these large planets — some of which
are many times the mass of Jupiter — has actually been (Line50)
seen through a telescope; we know about them indirectly
through the gravitational effects they exert on their parent
stars. Yet, even though we have no picture of what they
look like, enough information has been deduced about
their atmospheric conditions to grant the nickname (Line55)
Goldilocks to a planet attending the star 70 Virginis,
an appellation suggesting that the cloud-top temperature
is "just right," as the storybook Goldilocks would say, for
the presence of liquid water. Liquid water, not known to
exist anywhere in our solar system now except on Earth, ( Line60)
is thought crucial to biological life; thus, only a short
leap of faith is needed to carry hopeful scientists from
the presence of water to the existence of extraterrestrial
life. To raise the specter of the Mars rock once again,
the primitive life-forms that pressed their memory inside (Line65)
it likewise suggest an era when dry-as-dust Mars was a
wet world, where rivers flowed.

In lines 5-12, the author suggests that the expeditioners’ discovery of the meteorite was surprising primarily because it
A. Defined scientist’s doubts that such an object could reach earth.
B. Occurred after her party had given up any hope of success.
C. Resulted from a seemingly unlikely sequence of events.
D. Provided evidence to contradict a long - standing scientific theory (E).
E. Led to an unprecedented degree of scrutiny.

Answer 1

Hint: In the given passage it is mentioned that what did amaze me about the potato-size rock that fell from Mars was that it had travelled millions of miles to land here". Further, the author describes the rock's journey as one in which it was "blasted from world to world," and had "lain waiting for millennia upon an Antarctic ice field”. The author is clearly amazed at the "seemingly unlikely sequence of events" that led to the rock's discovery.

Complete answer:
The discovery of the rock was surprising as it was found at an Antarctic ice field, where the chances of finding it are very low. Option A is Defined scientist’s doubts that such an object could reach earth is an incorrect option. Option B is Occurred after her party had given up any hope of success is an incorrect option. Option C is Resulted from a seemingly unlikely sequence of events is the correct answer for the above asked question. Option D is for the Provided evidence to contradict a long - standing scientific theory (E) is an incorrect option. Option E is Led to an unprecedented degree of scrutiny is also an incorrect answer.
The rest of the options given are not mentioned or implied in the passage and hence, they’re incorrect.

Hence, Option C is the correct answer.

Note: According to the given passage the discovery of the rock was unexpected because it was found at an Antarctic ice field, where the chances of finding it were extremely narrow. Also, the aim of the expedition was different, and not to look for rocks from other worlds.