So far two interstellar objects have been observed inside the solar system, 1I/'Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019.
Will a new object designated with an I number be observed during 2024 ?
If the object is observed in 2024 but only receives the I designation at a later date, this will resolve YES. The market will remain open for a few months in 2025 for this reason, especially if there are likely candidates.
Interstellar Meteors (designated by IM) do not count for this market.
1,000
3.00This market should be at about 6% now
Assume that moments of arrival of interstellar objects are distributed uniformly in time and independently from one another, which seems like a reasonable assumption. Sure, our ability to find such objects increases in time, which makes the distribution of known interstellar objects not uniform. But let's assume that it increases slowly enough for the uniform model to be useful in reasonable time intervals, because I'm to lazy to take it into account. So, we can estimate the rate at which interstellar objects arrive.
The first way to do it is to just divide the number of objects (two) by the period of observation, but I don't know how long ago our observational capabilities have got close enough to the current ones for that estimation to be correct.
But, if some events are distributed uniformly in time, the intervals between those events are distributed exponentially, with a mean length of the interval being inverse of the rate. So, we can take the interval between perihelions of Oumuamua and Borisov, which is 820 days, and treat it as a single point drawn from the exponential distribution. Our maximum likelihood estimation of the rate should be 1/820 (objects per day).
Then, if some events are distributed uniformly in time, the number of such events in an interval of any given length comes from Poisson distribution. The probability of a Poissonian random variable being equal to zero is e^(-rate). So, in case of this market, my estimation is 1 - e^(-number of days until EOY / 820), which for today, November 9th, is equal to 6.26%.
If anyone sees a mistake in my calculation or does a more detailed one, which takes into account our changing observational capabilities, or includes a proper Bayesian calculation of the distribution of possible values of the rate, before this market closes, I will send them M50.