Year-End Post-Mortem: Science

• There seems to have been some evidence of  Cyrovolcanism on Pluto and Charon (see articles here and here.)  It is not clear to me if this evidence is "clear" enough to count for this question.  Thus, I have decided to void this question.
• No new Moons of Pluto were found by New Horizons.  I said that there was a 25% chance of no moons being discovered.  I still think the absence of additional moons was rather surprising.
• As far as I can tell, no significant evidence of a liquid ocean has been discovered on Ceres (see my post Ceres Ocean).  I said there was a 75% chance of no discovery.  This question was originally supposed to be resolved by SciCast Predict, but that site is no longer operating.  I believe that the SciCast question was to end at the end of 2015, so I am declaring my question to be closed as well.
• There has been no Scicast Re-Opening in 2015.  I said there was a 40% chance of SciCast Predict not re-opening in 2015.  Obviously, I may have been somewhat optimistic.

Overall, many of my science questions have had serious issues with interpretation; it is hard to come up with questions that could plausibly resolve as either a clear yes or a clear no.

Primordial Gravity Waves

Q146: Before the end of 2016, will a reputable group of scientists announce that they have detected evidence of primordial gravity waves?
Yes: 20%
(This question is very similar to SciCast question 387)

Primordial gravitational waves are an expected consequence of some theories of (cosmological) inflation.  In 2014, researchers using the BICEP2 telescope claimed to have detected these waves, but their findings were later retracted due to evidence of intervening dust clouds responsible for the signal (see story here).  However, there still seem to be several teams attempting to find primordial gravity waves.

Scientific discovery often takes a long time, and I see no evidence that a new announcement is imminent.  I am thus going to go with a fairly low estimate.

Ceres Ocean

Q55: Will a liquid ocean be detected on the dwarf planet Ceres by the Dawn spacecraft?
Yes: 25%
No: 75%
(This question will be resolved by the resolution of SciCast Question 1148)

There has been speculation that a subsurface liquid ocean may exist on the dwarf planet Ceres.  Ceres is thought to have a high ice content, and water vapour emission from it was detected recently.  The NASA Dawn spacecraft will soon be in orbit around Ceres, and may be able to answer this question.

The biggest problem with this question may be one of detection; even if Ceres does have a liquid water ocean, Dawn may not be able to confirm its existence.  Also, unlike Europa (which almost certainly does have a liquid ocean), Ceres does not have tidal heating.  Still, the possibility of a liquid ocean seems real.

Moons of Pluto

Q26: Will any previously undiscovered moons of Pluto be discovered by the New Horizons probe?
Yes: 75%
No: 25%
(Definition note: The question will not count either way if the New Horizons probe fails)

The New Horizons probe will be searching for as-yet undiscovered moons of Pluto.  According to the Wikipedia article, it is expected to find moons down to a 2km diameter.  The smallest detected moon of Pluto, Styx, is around 15km in diameter.  It is plausible that there might be a number of smaller moons; Jupiter and Saturn both have a large number of smaller moons (in the 2-10km range).  According to this article, Pluto might have as many as 10 moons (although the theory that this prediction is based on might be in error).

Cyrovolcanism on Pluto and Charon

Q21: Will the New Horizons probe find clear evidence of recent (last 100m years) cyrovolcanism on
Neither Pluto nor Charon: 15%
Pluto only: 5%
Charon only: 25%
Both Pluto and Charon: 55%

From the Wikipedia article, "A cryovolcano (colloquially known as an ice volcano) is a volcano that erupts volatiles such as water, ammonia or methane, instead of molten rock".  Cyrovolcanism has been observed on Triton, which is thought to be a (captured) Kuiper Belt Object (like Pluto).  There is some speculation that there might be cyrovolcanism on Pluto and Charon.

There has been some solid (but not conclusive) evidence of cyrovolcanism on Charon.  The evidence seems less clear for Pluto.  Given how similar Pluto and Charon are, I think that evidence will be found on Pluto as well, although I am less certain than I am for Charon.