Will at least five more exoplanets be found to be potentially habitable between 1 February 2024 and 31 December 2024?
Many building blocks are needed to support life, including water, carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen gas (Smithsonian Magazine). To be considered “potentially habitable”, a planet must be up to 2.5 times the size of the Earth or up to 10 times Earth’s mass and orbit the right distance from its star for liquid water to possibly be present (Planetary Habitability Laboratory).
Resolution Criteria: As of 1 February 2024, the Habitable Worlds Catalog identified 69 potentially habitable worlds out of over five thousand known exoplanets, with five of them added to the list in 2023. This question will be resolved as “Yes” if the Habitable Worlds Catalog adds 5 or more new potentially habitable worlds to the list (i.e., the sum of their conservative and optimistic samples) discovered on or before 31 December 2024.
Outcome
| Answer | Final crowd forecast | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 1% | Did not happen |
| No | 99% | Happened |
“Final crowd forecast” is the last aggregate crowd probability computed before the question closed – the right-hand end of the chart below, which this table is the accessible equivalent of.
Crowd forecast over time
No
Yes