How is the chance / frequency estimated of events that are so rare they are never observed?
For example the frequency of impacts of meteorites by size, or the age of surface features on other planets by counting the number of impact craters on top of them.
Posted May 27, 2015, 9:40 AM UTC
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You find ways to work out how common they are. We can watch meteors impact the moon to find out how common the smaller ones are, and then extrapolate once we have an idea of the distribution. We can also look for asteroids in the asteroid belt, where they're more common but they aren't at risk of hitting the Earth.