Timeline of United States discoveries
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Timeline of United States discoveries encompasses the breakthroughs of human thought and knowledge of new scientific findings, phenomena, places, things, and what was previously unknown to exist. From a historical stand point, the timeline below of United States discoveries dates from the 18th century to the current 21st century, which have been achieved by discoverers who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. With an emphasis of discoveries in the fields of
astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
,
physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
,
chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
,
medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
,
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
,
geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...
,
paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
, and
archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, United States citizens acclaimed in their professions have contributed much. For example, the "
Bone Wars The Bone Wars, also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, was a period of intense and ruthlessly competitive fossil hunting and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope (of the Ac ...
," beginning in 1877 and ending in 1892, was an intense period of rivalry between two American paleontologists,
Edward Drinker Cope Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested ...
and
Othniel Charles Marsh Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...
, who initiated several expeditions throughout
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
in the pursuit of discovering, identifying, and finding new species of
dinosaur fossils This list of dinosaur-bearing rock formations is a list of geologic formations in which dinosaur fossils have been documented. Containing body fossils * List of stratigraphic units with dinosaur body fossils ** List of stratigraphic units with f ...
. In total, their large efforts resulted in when 142 species of dinosaurs being discovered. With the founding of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding th ...
(NASA) in 1958, a vision and continued commitment by the United States of finding extraterrestrial and astronomical discoveries has helped the world to better understand the
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...
and
universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...
. As one example, in 2008, the ''Phoenix'' lander discovered the presence of frozen water on the planet
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
of which scientists such as
Peter H. Smith Peter Hopkinson Smith (born January 17, 1940) is a scholar of Latin American history, politics, economics, and diplomacy. He is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science and the Simon Bolivar Professor of Latin American Studies at ...
of the
University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) is a research center for planetary science located in Tucson, Arizona. It is also a graduate school, constituting the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. LPL is one of the wo ...
(LPL) had suspected before the mission confirmed its existence.


Eighteenth century

1747
Charge conservation In physics, charge conservation is the principle that the total electric charge in an isolated system never changes. The net quantity of electric charge, the amount of positive charge minus the amount of negative charge in the universe, is alwa ...
* In physics, charge conservation is the principle that
electric charge Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes charged matter to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be ''positive'' or ''negative'' (commonly carried by protons and electrons respe ...
can neither be created nor destroyed. The quantity of electric charge, the amount of
positive charge Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes charged matter to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be ''positive'' or ''negative'' (commonly carried by protons and electrons respe ...
minus the amount of
negative charge Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes charged matter to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be ''positive'' or ''negative'' (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectiv ...
in the universe, is always conserved. As part of his groundbreaking work in electricity,
Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
around the year 1747 discovered the principle of charge conservation when he came to the conclusion that the two states of electricity, positive and negative, the charge is never created or destroyed but instead transferable from one place to another. 1796
Johnston Atoll Johnston Atoll is an Unincorporated territories of the United States, unincorporated territory of the United States, currently administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Johnston Atoll is a National Wildlife Refuge and ...
* Johnston Atoll, a
territory of the United States A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
, a
Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a group of unorganized, mostly unincorporated United States Pacific Island territories managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Int ...
, and a part of the wider
United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code. The entry code is ISO 3166-2:UM. The minor outlying islands and groups of islands consist ...
, is a 50-square-mile (130 km2) atoll in the
North Pacific Ocean North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...
about 750 miles (1,400 kilometers) west of the U.S. state of
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
. There are four islands located on the coral reef platform, two natural islands, Johnston Island and Sand Island, which have been expanded by coral dredging, as well as North Island (Akau) and East Island (Hikina), an additional two artificial islands formed by coral dredging. The sovereignty of Johnston Atoll was disputed and claimed by the
Kingdom of Hawaii The Hawaiian Kingdom, or Kingdom of Hawaiʻi ( Hawaiian: ''Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina''), was a sovereign state located in the Hawaiian Islands. The country was formed in 1795, when the warrior chief Kamehameha the Great, of the independent island ...
beginning in 1858 until Hawaii itself was eventually annexed by the United States as the
Hawaii Territory The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Panalāʻau o Hawaiʻi'') was an organized incorporated territories of the United States, organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from Ap ...
in 1898. Johnston Atoll is now administered and managed by the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
, an agency of the
United States Department of Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
. In 1796, Johnston Atoll was discovered accidentally by U.S. Captain Joseph Pierpoint when his ship, the American brig ''Sally'', ran aground. 1798
Tabuaeran Tabuaeran, also known as Fanning Island, is an atoll that is part of the Line Islands of the central Pacific Ocean and part of Kiribati. The land area is , and the population in 2015 was 2,315. The maximum elevation is about 3 m (10 f ...
* Tabuaeran, also known as Fanning Island or Fanning Atoll (both Gilbertese and English names are recognized) is one of the
Line Islands The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands (in Gilbertese, ''Aono Raina'') are a chain of 11 atolls (with partly or fully enclosed lagoons) and coral islands (with a surrounding reef) in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawa ...
located in the central
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. With a population of approximately 2,500, much of the island's economy relies upon the cruise industry. Formerly under British rule, Tabuaeran now is a part of the
Republic of Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...
. Tabuaeran was discovered on June 11, 1798 by U.S. Captain
Edmund Fanning Edmund Fanning (July 16, 1769 – April 23, 1841) was an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific." Life Born in Stonington in the British Crown Colony of Connecticut to Gilbert and Huldah Fanning, from ne ...
, at 3 a.m., while on a voyage to
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
aboard his ship, ''Betsy''. 1798
Teraina Teraina (written also Teeraina, also known as Washington Island – these two names are constitutional) is a coral atoll in the central Pacific Ocean and part of the Northern Line Islands which belong to Kiribati. Obsolete names of Teraina a ...
* Teraina, also known as Washington Island, is an inhabited coral atoll located in the central
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
that is north of the
equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can als ...
, northwest of
Tabuaeran Tabuaeran, also known as Fanning Island, is an atoll that is part of the Line Islands of the central Pacific Ocean and part of Kiribati. The land area is , and the population in 2015 was 2,315. The maximum elevation is about 3 m (10 f ...
, northwest of
Christmas Island Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory comprising the island of the same name. It is located in the Indian Ocean, around south of Java and Sumatra and around north-west of the ...
, and southeast of the U.S. territory of
Palmyra Atoll Palmyra Atoll (), also referred to as Palmyra Island, is one of the Line Islands, Northern Line Islands (southeast of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati). It is located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly one-third of the way bet ...
. Formerly under British rule, Teraina is now a part of the
Republic of Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...
. Obsolete names of Teraina are Prospect Island and New York Island. The island consists of nine Polynesian villages. Teraina was discovered by U.S. Captain
Edmund Fanning Edmund Fanning (July 16, 1769 – April 23, 1841) was an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific." Life Born in Stonington in the British Crown Colony of Connecticut to Gilbert and Huldah Fanning, from ne ...
, in the American ship ''Betsy'', on June 12, 1798. 1798
Palmyra Atoll Palmyra Atoll (), also referred to as Palmyra Island, is one of the Line Islands, Northern Line Islands (southeast of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati). It is located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly one-third of the way bet ...
Palmyra Atoll, a
territory of the United States A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
, a
Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a group of unorganized, mostly unincorporated United States Pacific Island territories managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Int ...
, and a part of the wider
United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code. The entry code is ISO 3166-2:UM. The minor outlying islands and groups of islands consist ...
, is a atoll located in the
North Pacific Ocean North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...
almost due south of the
Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...
, roughly halfway between the U.S. state of
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
and the U.S. territory of
American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
. The atoll consists of an extensive reef, two shallow lagoons, and some 50 sand and reef-rock islets and bars covered with lush, tropical vegetation. The islets of the atoll are all connected, except Sand Island and the two Home Islets in the west and Barren Island in the east. The largest island is Cooper Island in the north, followed by Kaula Island in the south. Cooper Island is privately owned by
The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Natu ...
and managed as a nature reserve. The rest of the atoll is managed by the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
and is directly administered by the
Office of Insular Affairs The Office of Insular Affairs (OIA) is a unit of the United States Department of the Interior that oversees federal administration of several United States insular areas. It is the successor to the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Departme ...
, an agency of the
United States Department of Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
. Palmyra Atoll's history is long and colorful. It was first sighted on June 14, 1798, by Captain
Edmund Fanning Edmund Fanning (July 16, 1769 – April 23, 1841) was an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific." Life Born in Stonington in the British Crown Colony of Connecticut to Gilbert and Huldah Fanning, from ne ...
and officially discovered in 1802 by Captain Sawle of the American ship ''Palmyra''. 1798
Kingman Reef Kingman Reef is a largely submerged, uninhabited, triangle-shaped reef, geologically an atoll, east-west and north-south, in the North Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and American Samoa. It has an area of 3 hectar ...
* Kingman Reef, a
territory of the United States A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
, a
Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a group of unorganized, mostly unincorporated United States Pacific Island territories managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Int ...
, and a part of the wider
United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code. The entry code is ISO 3166-2:UM. The minor outlying islands and groups of islands consist ...
, is a largely submerged, uninhabited triangular shaped reef, 9.5 nautical miles (18 kilometers) east-west and 5 nautical miles (9 kilometers) north-south, located in the
North Pacific Ocean North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...
, roughly halfway between the
Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...
and the U.S. territory of
American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the International ...
. It is the northernmost of the
Northern Line Islands The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands (in Gilbertese language, Gilbertese, ''Aono Raina'') are a chain of 11 atolls (with partly or fully enclosed lagoons) and coral islands (with a surrounding reef) in the central Pacific Oce ...
and lies 36 nautical miles (67 kilometers) northwest of the next closest island, the U.S. territory of
Palmyra Atoll Palmyra Atoll (), also referred to as Palmyra Island, is one of the Line Islands, Northern Line Islands (southeast of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati). It is located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly one-third of the way bet ...
, and 930 nautical miles (1,720 kilometers) south of
Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...
. Kingman Reef is now administered and managed by the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
, an agency of the
United States Department of Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
. First known as "Dangerous Reef", Kingman Reef was discovered on June 14, 1798 by U.S. Captain
Edmund Fanning Edmund Fanning (July 16, 1769 – April 23, 1841) was an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific." Life Born in Stonington in the British Crown Colony of Connecticut to Gilbert and Huldah Fanning, from ne ...
.


Nineteenth century

1821
South Orkney Islands The South Orkney Islands are a group of islands in the Southern Ocean, about north-east of the tip of the Antarctic PeninsulaSouthern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...
, about northeast of the tip of the
Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...
. As part of the
British Antarctic Territory The British Antarctic Territory (BAT) is a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom as one of its 14 British Overseas Territories, of which it is by far the largest by area. It comprises the region south of 60°S latitude and between ...
, the islands have a total area of about . In December 1821, Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer as commander of the ''James Monroe'', along with British sealer George Powell, co-discovered the South Orkney Islands. 1822
Howland Island Howland Island () is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unorganized, unincorporated ter ...
* Howland Island, a
territory of the United States A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
and a part of the
United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code. The entry code is ISO 3166-2:UM. The minor outlying islands and groups of islands consist ...
, is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about 1,700 nautical miles (3,100 km) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. The island lies almost halfway between the U. S state of Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbor is
Baker Island Baker Island, formerly known as New Nantucket, is an uninhabited atoll just north of the Equator in the central Pacific Ocean about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbor is Ho ...
, 37 nautical miles (68 kilometers) to the south. Now known as a
National Wildlife Refuge National Wildlife Refuge System is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the system of public lands and waters set aside to c ...
, Howland Island is an
insular area In the law of the United States, an insular area is a U.S.-associated jurisdiction that is not part of the 50 states or the District of Columbia. This includes fourteen U.S. territories administered under U.S. sovereignty, as well as three sov ...
administered and managed by the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
. First known as "Worth Island", Howland Island as it later was named, was discovered by U.S. Captain George B. Worth aboard the whaler ''Oena'' in 1822. 1825
Baker Island Baker Island, formerly known as New Nantucket, is an uninhabited atoll just north of the Equator in the central Pacific Ocean about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbor is Ho ...
* Baker Island, a
territory of the United States A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
and a part of the
United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code. The entry code is ISO 3166-2:UM. The minor outlying islands and groups of islands consist ...
, is an uninhabited atoll located just north of the equator in the central
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
about 1,700 miles (3,100 kilometers) southwest of
Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...
. The island lies almost halfway between the U.S. state of
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
and
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. Its nearest neighbor is
Howland Island Howland Island () is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unorganized, unincorporated ter ...
, 37 nautical miles (68 kilometers) to the north. Now known as a
National Wildlife Refuge National Wildlife Refuge System is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the system of public lands and waters set aside to c ...
, Baker Island is an
insular area In the law of the United States, an insular area is a U.S.-associated jurisdiction that is not part of the 50 states or the District of Columbia. This includes fourteen U.S. territories administered under U.S. sovereignty, as well as three sov ...
administered and managed by the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
. According to an article in ''Pacific Magazine'' dated in 2000, Baker island was reportedly first sighted in 1825 by U.S. Captain
Obed Starbuck The Starbuck family were prominent in the history of whaling in the United States, based in Nantucket, Massachusetts, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Some members of the family gained wider exposure due to their discovery of vario ...
in the ship ''Lopez''. The newly discovered island was named New Nantucket (and also as Phoebe). It was in 1832 that U.S. Captain Michael Baker, after whom the island is now named, also came to the island aboard the whaler ''Gideon Howard''. 1831
Chloroform Chloroform, or trichloromethane, is an organic compound with chemical formula, formula Carbon, CHydrogen, HChlorine, Cl3 and a common organic solvent. It is a colorless, strong-smelling, dense liquid produced on a large scale as a precursor to ...
* Chloroform is a chemical compound in the
trihalomethane In chemistry, trihalomethanes (THMs) are chemical compounds in which three of the four hydrogen atoms of methane () are replaced by halogen atoms. Many trihalomethanes find uses in industry as solvents or refrigerants. THMs are also environment ...
family that does not undergo combustion in air, although it will burn when mixed with more flammable substances. Chloroform was first discovered in July 1831 by American physician Samuel Guthrie, independently a few months later by French chemist
Eugène Soubeiran Eugène Soubeiran (5 December 1797, in Paris – 17 November 1859, in Paris) was a French scientist. From 1823 he served as chief pharmacist at La Pitie Hospital in Paris. In 1832 he became director of ''Pharmacie Centrale'', a drug manufacturi ...
and then by German chemist
Justus von Liebig Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 20 April 1873) was a German scientist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. As a professor at t ...
. 1858 Hadrosaurus foulki Hadrosaurus was a dubious genus of a hadrosaurid dinosaur that lived near what is now the coast of New Jersey in the late
Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
, around 80 million years ago. It was likely bipedal for the purposes of running, but could use its forelegs to support itself while grazing. Like all hadrosaurids, Hadrosaurus was herbivorous. Its teeth suggest it ate twigs and leaves. In the summer of 1858 while vacationing in Haddonfield, New Jersey,
William Parker Foulke William Parker Foulke (1816–1865) discovered the first full dinosaur skeleton in North America (''Hadrosaurus foulkii'', which means "Foulke's big lizard") in Haddonfield, New Jersey in 1858. Born in Philadelphia, and a descendant of Welsh ...
discovered the world's first nearly-complete skeleton of any species of dinosaur, the Hadrosaurus (named by
Joseph Leidy Joseph Mellick Leidy (September 9, 1823 – April 30, 1891) was an American paleontologist, parasitologist and anatomist. Leidy was professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, later was a professor of natural history at Swarthmore ...
), an event that would rock the scientific world and forever change our view of natural history. To this day, Haddonfield, New Jersey is considered to be "ground zero" of dinosaur paleontology. 1859
Midway Atoll Midway Atoll (colloquial: Midway Islands; haw, Kauihelani, translation=the backbone of heaven; haw, Pihemanu, translation=the loud din of birds, label=none) is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the Unit ...
Midway Atoll, better known as Midway Island or collectively as the Midway islands, is a
territory of the United States A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...
and a part of the wider
United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code. The entry code is ISO 3166-2:UM. The minor outlying islands and groups of islands consist ...
that is located in the
North Pacific Ocean North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...
near the northwestern end of the
Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...
. As a 2.4-square-mile (6.2 km²) atoll, Midway Atoll is one-third of the way between
Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...
and
Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
, approximately 140 nautical miles (259 kilometers) east of the
International Date Line The International Date Line (IDL) is an internationally accepted demarcation on the surface of Earth, running between the South and North Poles and serving as the boundary between one calendar day and the next. It passes through the Pacific O ...
, about 2,800 nautical miles (5,200 kilometers) west of
San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, and 2,200 nautical miles (4,100 kilometers) east of Tokyo, Japan. Midway Atoll consists of a ring-shaped barrier reef and several sand islets. The two significant pieces of land, Sand Island and Eastern Island, provide habitat for millions of seabirds. Because of the importance of marine and biological environment, Midway Atoll is an insular area known as the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge that is administered and managed by the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
, an agency of the
United States Department of Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
. Midway Atoll is perhaps best known as the site of the
Battle of Midway The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Adm ...
, fought in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
on June 4–6, 1942 and the decisive turning point of the
Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
when the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
defeated an attack by the
Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
. First known as "Middlebrooks Islands", Midway Atoll was discovered by U.S. Captain N.C. Brooks aboard his ship, ''Gambia'', on July 8, 1859. 1859
Petroleum jelly Petroleum jelly, petrolatum, white petrolatum, soft paraffin, or multi-hydrocarbon, CAS number 8009-03-8, is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons (with carbon numbers mainly higher than 25), originally promoted as a topical ointment for its h ...
Petroleum jelly, petrolatum or soft paraffin is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons originally promoted as a topical ointment for its healing properties. The raw material for petroleum jelly was discovered in 1859 by
Robert Chesebrough Robert Augustus Chesebrough, (January 9, 1837 – September 8, 1933) was an American chemist who discovered petroleum jelly—which he marketed as Vaseline—and founder of the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company. Life and career Born in ...
, a chemist from New York. In 1870, this product was branded as Vaseline Petroleum Jelly. 1873
Chemical potential In thermodynamics, the chemical potential of a species is the energy that can be absorbed or released due to a change of the particle number of the given species, e.g. in a chemical reaction or phase transition. The chemical potential of a species ...
* The chemical potential, symbolized by μ, is a
thermodynamic Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...
concept developed by the American scientist
Josiah Willard Gibbs Josiah Willard Gibbs (; February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made significant theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in t ...
in his 1873 paper ''A Method of Geometrical Representation of the Thermodynamic Properties of Substances by Means of Surfaces. '' Gibbs's work had an enormous impact on the development of modern
physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mecha ...
. 1875
Red Delicious Red Delicious is a type of apple with a red exterior and sweet taste that was first recognized in Madison County, Iowa, in 1872. Today, the name ''Red Delicious'' comprises more than 50 cultivars. From 1968 to 2018, it was the most produced cu ...
The Red Delicious is a clone of
apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
cultigen A cultigen () or cultivated plant is a plant that has been deliberately altered or selected by humans; it is the result of artificial selection. These plants, for the most part, have commercial value in horticulture, agriculture or forestry. Beca ...
, now comprising more than 50
cultivars A cultivar is a type of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and when Plant propagation, propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and st ...
. The Red Delicious apple was discovered in 1875 by Jesse Hiatt on his farm in Peru, Iowa. Believing that the seedling was nothing more than nuisance. After chopping down the tree three times, Hiatt decided to let the tree grow and eventually, it produced an unknown and new harvest of red apples. Hiatt would eventually sell the rights to this type of apple to the Stark Brothers Nurseries and Orchards who renamed it the Red Delicious. 1877 Deimos Deimos is the smaller and outer of Mars' two moons. It was discovered by
Asaph Hall Asaph Hall III (October 15, 1829 – November 22, 1907) was an American astronomer who is best known for having discovered the two moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, in 1877. He determined the orbits of satellites of other planets and of double ...
in 1877. 1877 Phobos Phobos is the larger and closer of Mars' two small moons. It was discovered by
Asaph Hall Asaph Hall III (October 15, 1829 – November 22, 1907) was an American astronomer who is best known for having discovered the two moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, in 1877. He determined the orbits of satellites of other planets and of double ...
in 1877. 1888
Cliff Palace Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The structure built by the Ancestral Puebloans is located in Mesa Verde National Park in their former homeland region. The cliff dwelling and park are in Montezuma County, in the sout ...
The Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The structure built by the
Ancestral Puebloans The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, a ...
is located in
Mesa Verde National Park Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States. Established ...
in their former homeland region. The cliff dwelling and park are in the southwestern corner of
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
, in the
Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...
. The ancient ruins of Cliff Palace were co-discovered during a snowstorm in December 1888 by
Richard Wetherill Richard Wetherill (1858–1910), a member of a Colorado ranching family, was an amateur archaeologist who discovered, researched and excavated sites associated with the Ancient Pueblo People. He is credited with the rediscovery of Cliff Palac ...
and Charlie Mason who were searching for stray cattle on Chapin Mesa. 1889
Torosaurus ''Torosaurus'' ("perforated lizard", in reference to the large openings in its frill) is a genus of herbivorous ceratopsid dinosaur that lived during the late Maastrichtian stage of the Cretaceous period, between 68 and 66 million years ago, th ...
Torosaurus was a herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous Period about 70 million years ago in what is now North America. Torosaurus had an enormous head that measured 8 feet (2.5 m) in length. Its skull is one of the largest known up to date, no other land animal has ever had a skull larger than Torosaurus. Torosaurus frill made up about one-half the total skull length. The first fossils of Torosaurus were discovered in 1889, in Wyoming by
John Bell Hatcher John Bell Hatcher (October 11, 1861 – July 3, 1904) was an American paleontologist and fossil hunter known as the "king of collectors" and best known for discovering ''Torosaurus'' and ''Triceratops'', two genera of dinosaurs described by O ...
. The American paleontologist
Othniel Charles Marsh Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...
would later name the specimen ''Torosaurus latus'', in recognition of the bull-like size of its skull and its large eyebrow horns. Ever since, the specimen has been in display at the Peabody Museum in New Haven, Connecticut. 1891
Thescelosaurus ''Thescelosaurus'' ( ; ancient Greek - (''-'') meaning "godlike", "marvellous", or "wondrous" and (') "lizard") was a genus of small neornithischian dinosaur that appeared at the very end of the Late Cretaceous period in North America. It was ...
Thescelosaurus was a bipedal dinosaur with a sturdy build, small wide hands, and a long pointed snout from the Late Cretaceous Period, approximately 66 million years ago. As a herbivore, Thescelosaurus was not a tall dinosaur and probably browsed the ground selectively to find food. Its leg structure and proportionally heavy build suggests that it was not a fast runner like other dinosaurs. The first fossils of Thescelosaurus were co-discovered in 1891 by
John Bell Hatcher John Bell Hatcher (October 11, 1861 – July 3, 1904) was an American paleontologist and fossil hunter known as the "king of collectors" and best known for discovering ''Torosaurus'' and ''Triceratops'', two genera of dinosaurs described by O ...
and William H. Utterback, in Wyoming. However, this discovery remained stored until
Charles W. Gilmore Charles Whitney Gilmore (March 11, 1874 – September 27, 1945) was an American paleontologist who gained renown in the early 20th century for his work on vertebrate fossils during his career at the United States National Museum (now the N ...
named the dinosaur in 1913. 1892 Amalthea Amalthea is the third moon of Jupiter in order of distance from the planet. It was discovered on September 9, 1892, by
Edward Emerson Barnard Edward Emerson Barnard (December 16, 1857 – February 6, 1923) was an American astronomer. He was commonly known as E. E. Barnard, and was recognized as a gifted observational astronomer. He is best known for his discovery of the high proper mo ...
. 1899 Phoebe * Phoebe is an irregular satellite of Saturn. It was discovered by
William Henry Pickering William Henry Pickering (February 15, 1858 – January 16, 1938) was an American astronomer. Pickering constructed and established several observatories or astronomical observation stations, notably including Percival Lowell's Flagstaff Observ ...
on March 17, 1899 from photographic plates that had been taken starting on August 16, 1898 at Arequipa, Peru by DeLisle Stewart.


Twentieth century

1902
Tyrannosaurus ''Tyrannosaurus'' is a genus of large theropoda, theropod dinosaur. The species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' (''rex'' meaning "king" in Latin), often called ''T. rex'' or colloquially ''T-Rex'', is one of the best represented theropods. ''Tyrannosa ...
Tyrannosaurus, a bipedal carnivore, is a genus of theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex, commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other
tyrannosaurids Tyrannosauridae (or tyrannosaurids, meaning "tyrant lizards") is a family (biology), family of coelurosaurian Theropoda, theropod dinosaurs that comprises two subfamilies containing up to thirteen genus, genera, including the eponymous ''Tyrannos ...
. Fossils are found in a variety of rock formations dating to the last two million years of the
Cretaceous Period The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of t ...
, 67 to 66 million years ago. It was among the last non-avian dinosaurs to exist prior to the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event. In 1902, the first skeleton of Tyrannosaurus was discovered in Hell Creek, Montana by American paleontologist
Barnum Brown Barnum Brown (February 12, 1873 – February 5, 1963), commonly referred to as Mr. Bones, was an American paleontologist. Named after the circus showman P. T. Barnum, he discovered the first documented remains of ''Tyrannosaurus'' during a career ...
. In 1908, Brown discovered a better preserved skeleton of Tyrannosaurus. 1908
Seyfert galaxies Seyfert galaxies are one of the two largest groups of active galaxies, along with quasars. They have quasar-like nuclei (very luminous, distant and bright sources of electromagnetic radiation) with very high surface brightnesses whose spectra ...
* Seyfert galaxies are a class of galaxies with nuclei that produce spectral line emission from highly ionized gas, named after Carl Keenan Seyfert, the astronomer who first identified the class in 1943 although they were first discovered by Edward A. Fath in 1908 while he was at the
Lick Observatory The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The observatory is managed by th ...
. 1909
Burgess shale The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest foss ...
The formation of Burgess shale — located in the
Canadian Rockies The Canadian Rockies (french: Rocheuses canadiennes) or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part ...
of
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
— is one of the world's most celebrated fossil fields, and the best of its kind. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. It is (Middle
Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...
) old, one of the earliest soft-parts fossil beds. The rock unit is a black
shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...
, and crops out at a number of localities near the town of
Field, British Columbia Field is an unincorporated community of approximately 169 people located in the Kicking Horse River valley of southeastern British Columbia, Canada, within the confines of Yoho National Park. At an elevation of , it is west of Lake Louise along ...
in the
Yoho National Park Yoho National Park ( ) is a National Parks of Canada, national park of Canada. It is located within the Canadian Rockies, Rocky Mountains along the western slope of the Continental Divide of the Americas in southeastern British Columbia, bordered ...
. The Burgess Shale was discovered by American palaeontologist
Charles Doolittle Walcott Charles Doolittle Walcott (March 31, 1850February 9, 1927) was an American paleontologist, administrator of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, and director of the United States Geological Survey.Wonderful Life (book) by Stephen Jay G ...
in 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork. He returned in 1910 with his sons, establishing a quarry on the flanks of Fossil Ridge. The significance of soft-bodied preservation, and the range of organisms he recognized as new to science, led him to return to the quarry almost every year until 1924. At this point, aged 74, he had amassed over 65,000 specimens. Describing the fossils was a vast task, pursued by Walcott until his death in 1927. 1910
Propane Propane () is a three-carbon alkane with the molecular formula . It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure, but compressible to a transportable liquid. A by-product of natural gas processing and petroleum refining, it is commonly used a ...
* Propane is a three-carbon
alkane In organic chemistry, an alkane, or paraffin (a historical trivial name that also has other meanings), is an acyclic saturated hydrocarbon. In other words, an alkane consists of hydrogen and carbon atoms arranged in a tree structure in which ...
, normally a gas, but compressible to a transportable liquid. It is derived from other
petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
products during oil or natural gas processing. It is commonly used as a fuel for engines, barbecues, portable stoves, and residential central heating. Propane was first identified as a volatile component in gasoline by Dr. Walter O. Snelling of the
U.S. Bureau of Mines For most of the 20th century, the United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) was the primary Federal government of the United States, United States government agency conducting scientific research and disseminating information on the extraction, proce ...
in 1910. 1912
Golden Delicious 'Golden Delicious' is a cultivar of apple. It is one of the 15 most popular apple cultivars in the United States. It is not closely related to 'Red Delicious'. History Golden Delicious arose from a chance seedling, possibly a hybrid of 'Gri ...
Golden Delicious is a large, yellow skinned cultivar of apple and very sweet to the taste. The original Golden Delicious tree is thought to have been discovered by Anderson Mullins on a hill near Porter Creek in Clay County, West Virginia. The Stark Brothers Nursery soon purchased the tree which spawned a leading cultivar in the United States and abroad. The Golden Delicious is the state fruit of West Virginia. 1912 Smoking-cancer link * Dr. Isaac Adler was the first to strongly suggest that lung cancer is related to smoking in 1912. 1914 Sinope * Sinope is a retrograde irregular satellite of Jupiter discovered by
Seth Barnes Nicholson Seth Barnes Nicholson (November 12, 1891 – July 2, 1963) was an American astronomer. He worked at the Lick observatory in California, and is known for discovering several moons of Jupiter in the 20th century. Nicholson was born in Springfield, ...
at
Lick Observatory The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The observatory is managed by th ...
in 1914. 1915
Zener diode A Zener diode is a special type of diode designed to reliably allow current to flow "backwards" (inverted polarity) when a certain set reverse voltage, known as the ''Zener voltage'', is reached. Zener diodes are manufactured with a great varie ...
s * A Zener diode is a type of diode that permits current in the forward direction like a normal diode, but also in the reverse direction if the voltage is larger than the
breakdown voltage The breakdown voltage of an insulator is the minimum voltage that causes a portion of an insulator to experience electrical breakdown and become electrically conductive. For diodes, the breakdown voltage is the minimum reverse voltage that mak ...
known as "Zener knee voltage" or "Zener voltage". The device was named after
Clarence Zener Clarence Melvin Zener (December 1, 1905 – July 2, 1993) was the American physicist who first (1934) described the property concerning the breakdown of electrical insulators. These findings were later exploited by Bell Labs in the development of ...
, who discovered this electrical property. 1916
Barnard's Star Barnard's Star is a red dwarf about six light-years from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It is the fourth-nearest-known individual star to the Sun after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system, and the closest star in the ...
* Barnard's Star is a very low-mass
red dwarf star ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave (TV channel), Dave since 2009, gaining a ...
. At a distance of about 1.8 parsecs from the
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...
, or just under six light-years, Barnard's Star is the nearest-known star in the constellation
Ophiuchus Ophiuchus () is a large constellation straddling the celestial equator. Its name comes from the Ancient Greek (), meaning "serpent-bearer", and it is commonly represented as a man grasping a snake. The serpent is represented by the constella ...
, and the fourth-closest known individual star to the Sun, after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system. In 1916, Barnard's Star was discovered by American astronomer
Edward Emerson Barnard Edward Emerson Barnard (December 16, 1857 – February 6, 1923) was an American astronomer. He was commonly known as E. E. Barnard, and was recognized as a gifted observational astronomer. He is best known for his discovery of the high proper mo ...
, whom the star was named after. 1916
Covalent bond A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electrons to form electron pairs between atoms. These electron pairs are known as shared pairs or bonding pairs. The stable balance of attractive and repulsive forces between atoms ...
ing * The idea of covalent bonding can be traced several years to Gilbert N. Lewis, who in 1916 described the sharing of electron pairs between atoms. He introduced the so-called Lewis notation or electron dot notation or The Lewis Dot Structure in which valence electrons are represented as dots around the atomic symbols. 1916
Heparin Heparin, also known as unfractionated heparin (UFH), is a medication and naturally occurring glycosaminoglycan. Since heparins depend on the activity of antithrombin, they are considered anticoagulants. Specifically it is also used in the treatm ...
* Heparin, a highly sulfated glycosaminoglycan, is widely used as an injectable anticoagulant and has the highest negative charge density of any known biological molecule. It can also be used to form an inner anticoagulant surface on various experimental and medical devices such as test tubes and renal dialysis machines. It was discovered by Jay McLean and
William Henry Howell William Henry Howell (February 20, 1860 – February 6, 1945) was an American physiologist. He pioneered the use of heparin as a blood anti-coagulant. Early life William Henry Howell was born on February 20, 1860, in Baltimore, Maryland. He g ...
in 1916. 1917
Vitamin A Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin and an essential nutrient for humans. It is a group of organic compounds that includes retinol, retinal (also known as retinaldehyde), retinoic acid, and several provitamin A carotenoids (most notably bet ...
* Vitamin A, a bi-polar molecule formed with bi-polar covalent bonds between carbon and hydrogen, is linked to a family of similarly shaped molecules, the retinoids, which complete the remainder of the vitamin sequence. Its important part is the retinyl group, which can be found in several forms. In foods of animal origin, the major form of vitamin A is an ester, primarily retinyl palmitate, which is converted to an alcohol in the small intestine. Vitamin A can also exist as an aldehyde, or as an acid. The discovery of vitamin A stemmed from research dating back to 1906, indicating that factors other than carbohydrates, proteins, and fats were necessary to keep cattle healthy. By 1917 one of these substances was independently discovered by
Elmer McCollum Elmer Verner McCollum (March 3, 1879 – November 15, 1967) was an American biochemist known for his work on the influence of diet on health.Kruse, 1961. McCollum is also remembered for starting the first rat colony in the United States to be u ...
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and
Lafayette Mendel Lafayette Benedict Mendel (February 5, 1872 – December 9, 1935) was an American biochemist known for his work in nutrition, with longtime collaborator Thomas B. Osborne, including the study of Vitamin A, Vitamin B, lysine and tryptophan. ...
and Thomas Osborne at Yale University. 1923
Oviraptor ''Oviraptor'' (; ) is a genus of oviraptorid dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous period. The first remains were collected from the Djadokhta Formation of Mongolia in 1923 during a paleontological expedition led by Roy Chapma ...
* Oviraptor is a genus of small Mongolian theropod dinosaur that lived during the late Campanian stage about 75 million years ago. In 1923,
Roy Chapman Andrews Roy Chapman Andrews (January 26, 1884 – March 11, 1960) was an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He led a series of expeditions through the politically disturbed C ...
discovered the first and so far the only fossils of Oviraptor to ever be found at the
Djadochta Formation The Djadochta Formation (sometimes transcribed and also known as Djadokhta, Djadokata, or Dzhadokhtskaya) is a highly fossiliferous geological formation situated in Central Asia, Gobi Desert, dating from the Late Cretaceous period, about 75 milli ...
in
Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
. This species of dinosaur was named and described by
Henry Fairfield Osborn Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. (August 8, 1857 – November 6, 1935) was an American paleontologist, geologist and eugenics advocate. He was the president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years and a cofounder of the American Euge ...
in 1924. 1924 Uncle Sam Diamond * Uncle Sam is a 40.23-carat white diamond, the largest diamond ever found in North America. Discovered in 1924 at the
Crater of Diamonds State Park Crater of Diamonds State Park is a Arkansas state park in Pike County, Arkansas, in the United States. The park features a 37.5-acre (15.2 ha) plowed field, the world's only diamond-bearing site accessible to the public. Diamonds have continuou ...
in Arkansas, the diamond was named after its discoverer, Wesley Oley Basham, who went by the nickname "Uncle Sam". Over the years, the Uncle Sam diamond was cut twice with the second cutting resulting in a 12.42-carat, emerald-cut gem. 1925
Cepheid variables A Cepheid variable () is a type of star that pulsates radially, varying in both diameter and temperature and producing changes in brightness with a well-defined stable period and amplitude. A strong direct relationship between a Cepheid vari ...
* Extragalactic astronomy is the branch of astronomy concerned with objects outside the Milky Way Galaxy. In other words, it is the study of all astronomical objects which are not covered by galactic astronomy. It was started by
Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an Americans, American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects ...
when, in 1925, he discovered the existence of
Cepheid variable A Cepheid variable () is a type of star that pulsates radially, varying in both diameter and temperature and producing changes in brightness with a well-defined stable period and amplitude. A strong direct relationship between a Cepheid varia ...
s in the Andromeda Galaxy. This discovery proved the existence of a galaxy over one million light-years away and thus extragalactic astronomy was created.Alt URL
/ref> 1927
Electron diffraction Electron diffraction refers to the bending of electron beams around atomic structures. This behaviour, typical for waves, is applicable to electrons due to the wave–particle duality stating that electrons behave as both particles and waves. Si ...
* Electron diffraction is a collective scattering phenomenon with electrons being scattered by atoms in a regular crystal array. This can be understood in analogy to the Huygens principle for the diffraction of light. The incoming plane electron wave interacts with the atoms, and secondary waves are generated which interfere with each other. In 1927, two Americans named
Clinton Davisson Clinton Joseph Davisson (October 22, 1881 – February 1, 1958) was an American physicist who won the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of electron diffraction in the famous Davisson–Germer experiment. Davisson shared the Nobel Priz ...
and
Lester Germer Lester Halbert Germer (October 10, 1896 – October 3, 1971) was an American physicist. With Clinton Davisson, he proved the wave-particle duality of matter in the Davisson–Germer experiment, which was important to the development of the elect ...
had proven de Broglie's theory by discovering electron diffraction. This confirmation of the wavelike nature of an electron was discovered independently of Englishman
George Paget Thomson Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS (; 3 May 189210 September 1975) was a British physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognized for his discovery of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction. Education and early life Thomso ...
. 1928
Jones Diamond The Jones Diamond, also known as the Punch Jones Diamond, The Grover Jones Diamond, or The Horseshoe Diamond, was a 34.48 carat (6.896 g) alluvial diamond found in Peterstown, West Virginia by members of the Jones family. It remains the largest all ...
* The Jones Diamond is a bluish-white diamond weighing 34.48 carats (6.896 g), measuring 5/8 of an inch (15.8 mm) across, and possessing 12 diamond-shaped faces. It is considered to be the largest alluvial diamond from North America. The Jones Diamond was discovered by William P. "Punch" Jones and his father Grover while pitching horseshoes in 1928. They thought the stone was a piece of quartz which was common in the area. Keeping it in a cigar box in their tool shed for 14 years, the Jones's sent the gem to the geology department at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...
in 1942 where they were informed that it was an alluvial diamond and not a quartz crystal. The diamond was then sent to the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
in Washington D.C. for safekeeping until 1964, when it returned to the Jones family who kept it for another 20 years in a safe deposit box at their local bank in Virginia. In 1984, the Jones family finally sold the diamond at
Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
auction in New York City to a private collector of jewelry. 1930
Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
Following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another planet might exist beyond its orbit. The search began in the mid-19th century but culminated at the start of the 20th century with a quest for Planet X.
Percival Lowell Percival Lowell (; March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. ...
proposed the Planet X hypothesis to explain apparent discrepancies in the orbits of the gas giants, particularly Uranus and Neptune, speculating that the gravity of a large unseen planet could have perturbed Uranus enough to account for the irregularities. The discovery of Pluto by
Clyde Tombaugh Clyde William Tombaugh (February 4, 1906 January 17, 1997) was an American astronomer. He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt. At the time of discovery, Pluto was cons ...
in 1930 initially appeared to validate Lowell's hypothesis, and
Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
was considered the ninth planet until 2006. 1931
Heavy hydrogen Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being protium, or hydrogen-1). The nucleus of a deuterium atom, called a deuteron, contains one proton and one n ...
* Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is a stable isotope of hydrogen with a natural abundance in the oceans of Earth of approximately one atom in 6500 of hydrogen (~154 PPM). It was discovered in 1931 by
Harold Urey Harold Clayton Urey ( ; April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the d ...
, who obtained a sample of hydrogen enriched in deuterium by distillation at low temperature and pressure. 1931 Cosmic radio waves * Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. While trying to track down a source of electrical interference on telephone transmissions,
Karl Guthe Jansky Karl Guthe Jansky (October 22, 1905 – February 14, 1950) was an American physicist and radio engineer who in April 1933 first announced his discovery of radio waves emanating from the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius. He is considered ...
of Bell Telephone Laboratories discovered radio waves emanating from stars in outer space while investigating static that interfered with short wave transatlantic voice transmissions. Thus, the field of radio astronomy was born. 1932
Positron The positron or antielectron is the antiparticle or the antimatter counterpart of the electron. It has an electric charge of +1 '' e'', a spin of 1/2 (the same as the electron), and the same mass as an electron. When a positron collides ...
s * The existence of positrons was first postulated in 1928 by
Paul Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the Univer ...
as a consequence of the
Dirac equation In particle physics, the Dirac equation is a relativistic wave equation derived by British physicist Paul Dirac in 1928. In its free form, or including electromagnetic interactions, it describes all spin- massive particles, called "Dirac par ...
and later discovered in 1932 by
Carl D. Anderson Carl David Anderson (September 3, 1905 – January 11, 1991) was an American physicist. He is best known for his discovery of the positron in 1932, an achievement for which he received the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics, and of the muon in 1936. ...
, who gave the positron its name. 1932
Homeostasis In biology, homeostasis (British English, British also homoeostasis) Help:IPA/English, (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physics, physical, and chemistry, chemical conditions maintained by organism, living systems. Thi ...
* Homeostasis is the property of a system, either open or closed, that regulates its internal environment so as to maintain a stable, constant condition. It was first proposed and coined by
Walter Bradford Cannon Walter Bradford Cannon (October 19, 1871 – October 1, 1945) was an American physiologist, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School. He coined the term "fight or flight response", and developed the theory ...
, a former professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at
Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
, and popularized it in his book ''The Wisdom of the Body''. 1933 Heavy water *
Harold Urey Harold Clayton Urey ( ; April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the d ...
discovered the isotope
deuterium Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two Stable isotope ratio, stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being Hydrogen atom, protium, or hydrogen-1). The atomic nucleus, nucleus of a deuterium ato ...
in 1931 and was later able to concentrate it in water. Urey's mentor
Gilbert Newton Lewis Gilbert Newton Lewis (October 23 or October 25, 1875 – March 23, 1946) was an American physical chemist and a Dean of the College of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. Lewis was best known for his discovery of the covalent bond a ...
isolated the first sample of pure heavy water by electrolysis in 1933. 1933
Polyvinylidene chloride Polyvinylidene chloride, or polyvinylidene dichloride (PVDC), is a homopolymer of vinylidene chloride. History Ralph Wiley accidentally discovered polyvinylidene chloride polymer in 1933. He, then, was a college student who worked part-time at D ...
* Polyvinylidene chloride is a polymer derived from vinylidene chloride. Its use can be found in water-based coating, the production of household items and industrial products. Ralph Wiley, a Dow Chemical lab worker, accidentally discovered polyvinylidene chloride in 1933. 1936
Elliptical galaxies An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The Real ...
* An elliptical galaxy is a galaxy having an approximately
elliptical Elliptical may mean: * having the shape of an ellipse, or more broadly, any oval shape ** in botany, having an elliptic leaf shape ** of aircraft wings, having an elliptical planform * characterised by ellipsis (the omission of words), or by conc ...
shape and a smooth, nearly featureless brightness profile. They range in shape from nearly spherical to highly flattened and in size from hundreds of millions to over one trillion
star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...
s. It was originally described by
Edwin Hubble Edwin Powell Hubble (November 20, 1889 – September 28, 1953) was an Americans, American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects ...
in his 1936 work "The Realm of the Nebulae" 1936
Muon A muon ( ; from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with an electric charge of −1 '' e'' and a spin of , but with a much greater mass. It is classified as a lepton. As wi ...
s * The muon is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with negative electric charge and a spin of 1⁄2. It was discovered by
Carl D. Anderson Carl David Anderson (September 3, 1905 – January 11, 1991) was an American physicist. He is best known for his discovery of the positron in 1932, an achievement for which he received the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics, and of the muon in 1936. ...
and Seth Henry Neddermeyer in 1936 while they studied cosmic radiation. 1936
Vitamin E Vitamin E is a group of eight fat soluble compounds that include four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. Vitamin E deficiency, which is rare and usually due to an underlying problem with digesting dietary fat rather than from a diet low in vitami ...
* Tocopherol, a class of chemical compounds of which many have vitamin E activity, describes a series of organic compounds consisting of various methylated phenols. During feeding experiments with rats
Herbert McLean Evans Herbert McLean Evans (September 23, 1882 – March 6, 1971) was an American anatomist and embryologist best known for co-discovering Vitamin E. Education He was born in Modesto, California. In 1908, he obtained his medical degree from Johns Ho ...
concluded in 1922 that besides vitamins B and C, an unknown vitamin existed. Although every other nutrition was present, the rats were not fertile. This condition could be changed by additional feeding with wheat germ. It took several years until 1936 when the substance was isolated from wheat germ and the formula C29H50O2 was determined by Herbert McLean Evans and K.S. Bishop. The structure was determined shortly thereafter in 1938. 1936
Sodium thiopental Sodium thiopental, also known as Sodium Pentothal (a trademark of Abbott Laboratories), thiopental, thiopentone, or Trapanal (also a trademark), is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anesthetic. It is the thiobarbiturate analog of pe ...
* Sodium thiopental, better known as Sodium Pentothal, thiopentone sodium, or trapanal, is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate. It was discovered in the early 1936 by
Ernest H. Volwiler Ernest Henry Volwiler (August 22, 1893 – October 3, 1992) was an American chemist. He spent his career at Abbott Laboratories working his way from staff chemist to CEO. He was a pioneer in the field of anesthetic pharmacology, assisting in th ...
and Donalee L. Tabern while working for Abbott Laboratories. 1937
Niacin Niacin, also known as nicotinic acid, is an organic compound and a form of vitamin B3, an essential human nutrient. It can be manufactured by plants and animals from the amino acid tryptophan. Niacin is obtained in the diet from a variet ...
* Niacin, also known as vitamin B3, is a water-soluble vitamin which prevents the deficiency disease pellagra. Niacin was extracted from livers by
Conrad Elvehjem Conrad Arnold Elvehjem (May 27, 1901July 27, 1962) was internationally known as an American biochemist in nutrition. In 1937 he identified two vitamins, nicotinic acid, also known as niacin, and nicotinamide, which were deficient directly in hum ...
who later discovered the active ingredient, then referred to as the "pellagra-preventing factor" and the "anti-blacktongue factor." 1937
Electron capture Electron capture (K-electron capture, also K-capture, or L-electron capture, L-capture) is a process in which the proton-rich nucleus of an electrically neutral atom absorbs an inner atomic electron, usually from the K or L electron shells. Thi ...
* Electron capture is a decay mode for isotopes that will occur when there are too many protons in the nucleus of an atom and insufficient energy to emit a positron. However, it continues to be a viable decay mode for radioactive isotopes that can decay by positron emission. K-electron capture was discovered by Luis Alvarez, who demonstrated it in 1937 and reported it in The Physical Review in April 1938. 1938 Fluropolymers * A fluoropolymer is a fluorocarbon based polymer with multiple strong
carbon–fluorine bond The carbon–fluorine bond is a polar covalent bond between carbon and fluorine that is a component of all organofluorine compounds. It is one of the strongest single bonds in chemistry (after the B–F single bond, Si–F single bond, and H–F s ...
s. It is characterized by a high resistance to solvents, acids, and bases. Fluoropolymers were discovered in 1938 by Dr. Roy Plunkett when he accidentally polymerized
tetrafluoroethylene Tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) is a fluorocarbon with the chemical formula C2 F4. It is the simplest perfluorinated alkene. This gaseous species is used primarily in the industrial preparation of fluoropolymers. Properties Tetrafluoroethylene is a ...
to form polytetrafluoroethylene. 1938
Animal echolocation Echolocation, also called bio sonar, is a biological sonar used by several animal species. Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these ...
* Echolocation, also called biosonar, is the biological sonar used by several animals such as dolphins, shrews, bats, and whales. The term was coined by
Donald Griffin Donald Redfield Griffin (August 3, 1915 – November 7, 2003) was an American professor of zoology at various universities who conducted seminal research in animal behavior, animal navigation, acoustic orientation and sensory biophysics. In 1938, ...
and Robert Galambos, who discovered its use by bats in 1938. 1938 Carme * Carme is a retrograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by
Seth Barnes Nicholson Seth Barnes Nicholson (November 12, 1891 – July 2, 1963) was an American astronomer. He worked at the Lick observatory in California, and is known for discovering several moons of Jupiter in the 20th century. Nicholson was born in Springfield, ...
at
Mount Wilson Observatory The Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson, a peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, northeast of Los Angeles. The observat ...
in California in July 1938. 1938 Lysithea * Lysithea is a prograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by
Seth Barnes Nicholson Seth Barnes Nicholson (November 12, 1891 – July 2, 1963) was an American astronomer. He worked at the Lick observatory in California, and is known for discovering several moons of Jupiter in the 20th century. Nicholson was born in Springfield, ...
in 1938 at
Mount Wilson Observatory The Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson, a peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, northeast of Los Angeles. The observat ...
. 1940
Plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
* Plutonium is a synthetic transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-white appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. Plutonium was co-discovered by
Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
, A.C. Wahl, and J.W. Kennedy in 1940. 1942 Cyanoacrylate * Cyanoacrylates are a class of fast-acting adhesives and glues. Better known under the brand name "Super Glue," cyanoacrylates are used to assemble prototype electronics (see
Wire wrap Wire wrap is an electronic component assembly technique that was invented to wire telephone crossbar switches, and later adapted to construct electronic circuit boards. Electronic components mounted on an insulating board are interconnected by l ...
), flying model aircraft, and as retention dressings for nuts and bolts. Their effectiveness in bonding metal and general versatility have also made them popular for use in simple woodworking, industrial binding, and appliance repair. The history of cyanoacrylates is one of accidental discovery when researchers under Dr. Harry Coover conducted experiments on adhesive chemicals in order to devise a clear plastic that could be used for precision gunsights for soldiers fighting in World War II. Failing in their experimentations, the practical usefulness of cyanoarcrylates did not materialize until much later when in 1951, Coover, who was then working at
Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
, came to the realization that the sticky adhesives had unique properties in that they required no heat or pressure to permanently bond two items together. In light of his invention of "Super Glue," Coover filed U.S. patent #2,768,109 on June 2, 1954 and it was issued to him on October 23, 1956. 1943
Streptomycin Streptomycin is an antibiotic medication used to treat a number of bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, ''Mycobacterium avium'' complex, endocarditis, brucellosis, ''Burkholderia'' infection, plague, tularemia, and rat bite fever. Fo ...
* Streptomycin is an antibiotic drug, the first of a class of drugs called aminoglycosides to be discovered, and was the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis. Streptomycin cannot be given orally as it must be administered by regular intramuscular injection. In 1943, Albert Schatz discovered Streptomycin. 1944
Americium Americium is a synthetic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Am and atomic number 95. It is a transuranic member of the actinide series, in the periodic table located under the lanthanide element europium, and thus by analogy was na ...
* Americium is a synthetic element that has the symbol Am and atomic number 95. A radioactive metallic element, americium is an actinide that is used in commercial ionization chamber smoke detectors, as well as in neutron sources and industrial gauges. Americium was co-discovered by
Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
, Ralph James, L. Morgan, and Albert Ghiorso during their work on the
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
in 1944. 1944
Curium Curium is a transuranic, radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cm and atomic number 96. This actinide element was named after eminent scientists Marie and Pierre Curie, both known for their research on radioactivity. Curium was first inte ...
* Curium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Cm and atomic number 96. A radioactive metallic transuranic element of the actinide series, curium is produced by bombarding plutonium with alpha particles (helium ions) and was named after
Marie Curie Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first ...
and her husband
Pierre Curie Pierre Curie ( , ; 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie, and Henri Becqu ...
. Curium was co-discovered by
Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
, Ralph A. James, and
Albert Ghiorso Albert Ghiorso (July 15, 1915 – December 26, 2010) was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned six decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s. Biog ...
at the University of California at Berkeley in 1944. 1945
Promethium Promethium is a chemical element with the symbol Pm and atomic number 61. All of its isotopes are radioactive; it is extremely rare, with only about 500–600 grams naturally occurring in Earth's crust at any given time. Promethium is one of onl ...
* Promethium is a chemical element whose existence was first predicted by
Bohuslav Brauner Bohuslav Brauner (May 8, 1855 – February 15, 1935) was a Czech chemist from the University of Prague, who investigated the properties of the rare earth elements, especially the determination of their atomic weights. Brauner predicted the ...
in 1902. It was first discovered and proven to exist at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and ...
(ORNL) in 1945 by Jacob A. Marinsky, Lawrence E. Glendenin, and
Charles D. Coryell Charles DuBois Coryell (February 21, 1912 – January 7, 1971) was an American chemist who was one of the discoverers of the element promethium. Coryell earned a Ph.D at California Institute of Technology in 1935 as the student of Arthur ...
by separation and analysis of the fission products of uranium fuel irradiated in the Graphite Reactor. 1946
Cloud seeding Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical p ...
* Cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, is the attempt to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud. The usual intent is to increase precipitation but hail and fog suppression are also widely practiced in airports. The method's use has ranged from increasing precipitation in areas experiencing drought to removing radioactive particles from clouds. Cloud seeding was discovered by
Vincent Schaefer Vincent Joseph Schaefer (July 4, 1906 – July 25, 1993) was an American chemist and meteorologist who developed cloud seeding. On November 13, 1946, while a researcher at the General Electric Research Laboratory, Schaefer modified clouds in the B ...
in 1946. 1948
Warfarin Warfarin, sold under the brand name Coumadin among others, is a medication that is used as an anticoagulant (blood thinner). It is commonly used to prevent blood clots such as deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, and to prevent strok ...
* Warfarin is an anticoagulant and pesticide. It was initially used as a pesticide but was later found to be effective and relatively safe for preventing thrombosis and embolism in many disorders and is currently the most widely used anticoagulant worldwide. It was discovered by
Karl Paul Link Karl Paul Gerhard Link (31 January 1901 – 21 November 1978) was an American biochemist best known for his discovery of the anticoagulant warfarin. Training and early career He was born in LaPorte, Indiana to a Lutheran minister of German descen ...
and chemists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. 1948 Miranda * Miranda is the smallest and innermost of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
' five major moons. It was discovered by
Gerard Kuiper Gerard Peter Kuiper (; ; born Gerrit Pieter Kuiper; 7 December 1905 – 23 December 1973) was a Dutch astronomer, planetary scientist, selenographer, author and professor. He is the eponymous namesake of the Kuiper belt. Kuiper is ...
on February 2, 1948 at
McDonald Observatory McDonald Observatory is an astronomical observatory located near unincorporated community of Fort Davis in Jeff Davis County, Texas, United States. The facility is located on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, with additional faci ...
. 1948
Serotonin Serotonin () or 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) is a monoamine neurotransmitter. Its biological function is complex and multifaceted, modulating mood, cognition, reward, learning, memory, and numerous physiological processes such as vomiting and vas ...
* Seratonin is a monoamine neurotransmitter synthesized in serotonergic neurons in the central nervous system (CNS) and enterochromaffin cells in the gastrointestinal tract of animals including humans. It was isolated and named in 1948 by Maurice M. Rapport, Arda Green, and
Irvine Page Irvine Heinly Page (January 7, 1901 – June 10, 1991) was an American physiologist who played an important part in the field of hypertension for almost 60 years while working at the Cleveland Clinic as the first Chair of Research.Frohlich ED, D ...
of the
Cleveland Clinic Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit American academic medical center based in Cleveland, Ohio. Owned and operated by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an Ohio nonprofit corporation established in 1921, it runs a 170-acre (69 ha) campus in Cleveland, ...
. 1948
Tetracycline Tetracycline, sold under various brand names, is an oral antibiotic in the tetracyclines family of medications, used to treat a number of infections, including Acne vulgaris, acne, cholera, brucellosis, plague (disease), plague, malaria, and sy ...
* Tetracycline is a broad-spectrum polyketide antibiotic indicated for use against many bacterial infections. It is commonly used to treat acne today, and played a historical role in stamping out cholera in the developed world. It was discovered by
Benjamin Minge Duggar Benjamin Minge Duggar (September 1, 1872 – September 10, 1956) was an American plant physiologist.Makers of American Botany, Harry Baker Humphrey, Ronald Press Company, Library of Congress Card Number 61-18435 He was born at Gallion, Hale Coun ...
in 1948. 1949
Nereid In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides ( ; grc, Νηρηΐδες, Nērēḯdes; , also Νημερτές) are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the 50 daughters of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanids, Oceanid Doris ...
* Nereid, also known as Neptune II, is a moon of
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
. Nereid was discovered on May 1, 1949 by
Gerard Kuiper Gerard Peter Kuiper (; ; born Gerrit Pieter Kuiper; 7 December 1905 – 23 December 1973) was a Dutch astronomer, planetary scientist, selenographer, author and professor. He is the eponymous namesake of the Kuiper belt. Kuiper is ...
, who proposed the name in the report of his discovery. It is named after the
Nereid In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides ( ; grc, Νηρηΐδες, Nērēḯdes; , also Νημερτές) are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the 50 daughters of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanids, Oceanid Doris ...
s, sea-nymphs of
Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...
. 1949
Berkelium Berkelium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Bk and atomic number 97. It is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California, the location of the Lawrence Ber ...
* Berkelium is a synthetic element with the symbol Bk and atomic number 97. A radioactive metallic element in the actinide series, berkelium was first synthesized by bombarding americium with alpha particles (helium ions) and was named for the University of California at Berkeley. Berkelium was co-discovered in December 1949 by
Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
, Stanley G. Thompson, and
Albert Ghiorso Albert Ghiorso (July 15, 1915 – December 26, 2010) was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned six decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s. Biog ...
. 1950
Californium Californium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Cf and atomic number 98. The element was first synthesized in 1950 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (then the University of California Radiation Laboratory), by bombarding ...
* Californium is a radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Cf and atomic number 98. The element was first produced by bombarding curium with alpha particles (helium ions) at the University of California, Berkeley. It was the sixth transuranic element to be synthesized. Californium is one of the highest atomic mass elements to have been produced in weighable amounts. It is named for the U.S. state of
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
and the University of California. Californium was co-discovered by Stanley G. Thompson,
Albert Ghiorso Albert Ghiorso (July 15, 1915 – December 26, 2010) was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned six decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s. Biog ...
, and
Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
in 1950. 1951
Barium star Barium stars are spectral class G to K stars whose spectra indicate an overabundance of s-process elements by the presence of singly ionized barium, Ba II, at λ 455.4 nm. Barium stars also show enhanced spectral features of carbon, the b ...
s * Barium stars are G to K class giants, whose spectra indicate an overabundance of s-process elements by the presence of singly ionized barium, Ba II, at λ 455.4 nm. Barium stars also show enhanced spectral features of carbon, the bands of the molecules CH, CN and C2. The class was originally recognized and defined by William Bidelman and Philip Keenan. 1951
Ananke In ancient Greek religion, Ananke (; grc, Ἀνάγκη), from the common noun , "force, constraint, necessity") is the personification of inevitability, compulsion and necessity. She is customarily depicted as holding a spindle. One of the ...
* Ananke is a retrograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by
Seth Barnes Nicholson Seth Barnes Nicholson (November 12, 1891 – July 2, 1963) was an American astronomer. He worked at the Lick observatory in California, and is known for discovering several moons of Jupiter in the 20th century. Nicholson was born in Springfield, ...
at
Mount Wilson Observatory The Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) is an astronomical observatory in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The MWO is located on Mount Wilson, a peak in the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, northeast of Los Angeles. The observat ...
in 1951. 1952
Polio vaccine Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis (polio). Two types are used: an inactivated poliovirus given by injection (IPV) and a weakened poliovirus given by mouth (OPV). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends all chil ...
* Vaccination works by priming the immune system with an 'immunogen'. Stimulating immune response, via use of an infectious agent, is known as immunization. The development of immunity to polio efficiently blocks person-to-person transmission of wild poliovirus, thereby protecting both individual vaccine recipients and the wider community. In 1952, Dr.
Jonas Salk Jonas Edward Salk (; born Jonas Salk; October 28, 1914June 23, 1995) was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New ...
announced his discovery of a trial vaccine for Polio, or poliomyelitis. Salk's vaccine was composed of "killed" polio virus, which retained the ability to immunize without the risk of infecting the patient. In 1954, Salk published his findings in the ''Journal of the American Medical Association'', and nationwide testing was carried out. In 1955, Salk's polio vaccine was made public. 1952
Einsteinium Einsteinium is a synthetic element with the symbol Es and atomic number 99. Einsteinium is a member of the actinide series and it is the seventh transuranium element. It was named in honor of Albert Einstein. Einsteinium was discovered as a com ...
* Einsteinium is a metallic synthetic element. On the periodic table, it is represented by the symbol Es and atomic number 99. It is the seventh transuranic element, and an actinide. It was named in honor of
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
. Einsteinium was discovered by Albert Ghioirso in December 1952. 1952 Rapid eye movement * Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes. REM sleep is classified into two categories: tonic and phasic. The phenomenon of REM sleep and its association with dreaming was discovered by
Eugene Aserinsky Eugene Aserinsky (May 6, 1921 – July 22, 1998), a pioneer in sleep research, was a graduate student at the University of Chicago in 1953 when he discovered REM sleep. He was the son of a dentist of Russian–Jewish descent. He made the dis ...
and Nathaniel Kleitman with assistance from
William C. Dement William Charles Dement (July 29, 1928 – June 17, 2020) was an American sleep researcher and founder of the Sleep Research Center at Stanford University. He was a leading authority on sleep, sleep deprivation and the diagnosis and treatment of s ...
, a medical student at the time, in 1952 during their tenures at the University of Chicago. Kleitman and Aserinsky's seminal article was published September 10, 1953. 1953
DNA structure Nucleic acid structure refers to the structure of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. Chemically speaking, DNA and RNA are very similar. Nucleic acid structure is often divided into four different levels: primary, secondary, tertiary, and quat ...
In 1953, based on X-ray diffraction images and the information that the bases were paired,
James D. Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...
along with
Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical struc ...
co-discovered what is now widely accepted as the first accurate double-helix model of DNA structure. 1955
Mendelevium Mendelevium is a synthetic element with the symbol Md ( formerly Mv) and atomic number 101. A metallic radioactive transuranium element in the actinide series, it is the first element by atomic number that currently cannot be produced in macroscopi ...
* Mendelevium is a synthetic element with the symbol Md (formerly Mv) and the atomic number 101. A metallic radioactive transuranic element of the actinides, mendelevium is usually synthesized by bombarding einsteinium with alpha particles and was named after the Russian chemist
Dmitri Mendeleev Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (sometimes transliterated as Mendeleyev or Mendeleef) ( ; russian: links=no, Дмитрий Иванович Менделеев, tr. , ; 8 February Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._27_January.html" ;"title="O ...
, who was responsible for the
Periodic Table The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the (chemical) elements, is a rows and columns arrangement of the chemical elements. It is widely used in chemistry, physics, and other sciences, and is generally seen as an icon of ch ...
. Mendelevium was co-discovered by
Albert Ghiorso Albert Ghiorso (July 15, 1915 – December 26, 2010) was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned six decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s. Biog ...
, Bernard G. Harvey, Gregory R. Choppin, Stanley G. Thompson, and
Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
in 1955. 1955
Antiproton The antiproton, , (pronounced ''p-bar'') is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived, since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy. The exis ...
* The antiproton is the antiparticle of the proton. It was discovered by University of California, Berkeley physicists Thomas Ypsilantis,
Emilio Segrè Emilio Gino Segrè (1 February 1905 – 22 April 1989) was an Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate, who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobe ...
,
Clyde Wiegand Clyde Wiegand (May 23, 1915, Long Beach, Washington – July 5, 1996) was an American physicist. Wiegand received his undergraduate degree from Willamette University in 1940. He began his graduate work in physics in 1941 at UC Berkeley. He wa ...
, and
Owen Chamberlain Owen Chamberlain (July 10, 1920 – February 28, 2006) was an American physicist who shared with Emilio Segrè the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the antiproton, a sub-atomic antiparticle. Biography Born in San Francisco, Cali ...
in 1955. 1956
Porous silicon Porous silicon (abbreviated as "PS" or "pSi") is a form of the chemical element silicon that has introduced nanopores in its microstructure, rendering a large surface to volume ratio in the order of 500 m2/cm3. History Porous silicon was disco ...
'' * Porous silicon (pSi) is a form of the chemical element silicon which has an introduced nanoporous holes in its microstructure, rendering a large surface to volume ratio in the order of 500m2/cm3. It was first discovered by accident in 1956 at Bell Labs by Arthur Uhlir Jr. and Ingeborg Uhlir. 1956
Kaon KAON (Karlsruhe ontology) is an ontology infrastructure developed by the University of Karlsruhe and the Research Center for Information Technologies in Karlsruhe. Its first incarnation was developed in 2002 and supported an enhanced version of ...
* A kaon is any one of a group of four mesons distinguished by the fact that they carry a quantum number called strangeness. It was first discovered by
Leon Lederman Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again f ...
and a group of scientists from Columbia University at
Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
. 1956
Antineutron The antineutron is the antiparticle of the neutron with symbol . It differs from the neutron only in that some of its properties have equal magnitude but opposite sign. It has the same mass as the neutron, and no net electric charge, but has opp ...
* The antineutron is the antiparticle of the neutron. An antineutron has the same mass as a neutron, and no net electric charge. However, it is different from a neutron by being composed of anti-quarks, rather than quarks. It was discovered by
Bruce Cork Bruce Cork (1916 – October 7, 1994) was a physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicis ...
, William Wenzell, Glenn Lambertson, and Oreste Piccioni in 1956. 1956
Neutrino A neutrino ( ; denoted by the Greek letter ) is a fermion (an elementary particle with spin of ) that interacts only via the weak interaction and gravity. The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass ...
* Neutrinos are elementary particles that travel close to the speed of light, lack an electric charge, are able to pass through ordinary matter almost undisturbed, and are thus extremely difficult to detect. The neutrino was first postulated in 1930 by
Wolfgang Pauli Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics fo ...
and later discovered in 1956 by
Clyde Cowan Clyde Lorrain Cowan Jr (December 6, 1919 – May 24, 1974) was an American physicist, the co-discoverer of the neutrino along with Frederick Reines. The discovery was made in 1956 in the neutrino experiment. Frederick Reines received the Nobel P ...
,
Frederick Reines Frederick Reines ( ; March 16, 1918 – August 26, 1998) was an American physicist. He was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his co-detection of the neutrino with Clyde Cowan in the neutrino experiment. He may be the only scientist in ...
, F. B. Harrison, H. W. Kruse, and A. D. McGuire. 1956
Nucleic acid hybridization Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: *Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucle ...
* Hybridization, discovered by
Alexander Rich Alexander Rich (15 November 1924 – 27 April 2015) was an American biologist and biophysicist. He was the William Thompson Sedgwick Professor of Biophysics at MIT (since 1958) and Harvard Medical School. Rich earned an A.B. ('' magna cum l ...
and David R. Davies in 1956, is the process of combining complementary, single-stranded nucleic acids into a single molecule. 1958 Van Allen radiation belt * The Van Allen radiation belt is a torus of energy charged particles around Earth, held in place by Earth's magnetic field. On the sun side, it is compressed because of the solar wind and on the other side, it is elongated to around three earth radii. This creates a cavity called the Chapman Ferraro Cavity, in which the Van Allen radiation belts reside. The existence of the belt was confirmed by the
Explorer 1 Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States in 1958 and was part of the U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The mission followed the first two satellites the previous year; the Soviet Union's ...
and Explorer 3 missions in early 1958, under Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. 1959
Antiproton The antiproton, , (pronounced ''p-bar'') is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived, since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy. The exis ...
* The antiproton is the antiparticle of the proton. It was discovered in 1955 by University of California, Berkeley physicists
Owen Chamberlain Owen Chamberlain (July 10, 1920 – February 28, 2006) was an American physicist who shared with Emilio Segrè the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the antiproton, a sub-atomic antiparticle. Biography Born in San Francisco, Cali ...
and
Emilio Segrè Emilio Gino Segrè (1 February 1905 – 22 April 1989) was an Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate, who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobe ...
for which they earned the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics. 1960
Seafloor spreading Seafloor spreading or Seafloor spread is a process that occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge. History of study Earlier theories by Alfred Wegener an ...
* Seafloor spreading occurs at mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is formed through volcanic activity and then gradually moves away from the ridge. Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. It was first proposed by Harry Hammond Hess and
Robert S. Dietz Robert Sinclair Dietz (September 14, 1914 – May 19, 1995) was a scientist with the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. Dietz, born in Westfield, New Jersey, was a marine geologist, geophysicist and oceanographer who conducted pioneering research along ...
in 1960. 1961
Eta meson The eta () and eta prime meson () are isosinglet mesons made of a mixture of up, down and strange quarks and their antiquarks. The charmed eta meson () and bottom eta meson () are similar forms of quarkonium; they have the same spin and parity ...
* The eta meson is a meson made of a mix of up quark, down quark, strange quark, quarks, and anti-quarks. It was discovered by a team at the University of California, Berkeley using the
Bevatron The Bevatron was a particle accelerator — specifically, a weak-focusing proton synchrotron — at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S., which began operating in 1954. The antiproton was discovered there in 1955, resulting in the ...
. 1964
Xi baryon The Xi baryons or ''cascade particles'' are a family of subatomic hadron particles which have the symbol and may have an electric charge () of +2 , +1 , 0, or −1 , where is the elementary charge. Like all conventional baryons ...
* In particle physics, subatomic particle (Xi) is a name given to a range of baryons with one up or down quark and two heavier quarks. They are sometimes called the cascade particles because of their unstable state, they decay rapidly into lighter particles through a chain of decays. The first discovery of the Xi particle was at
Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
in 1964. 1964
Cosmic microwave background radiation In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all space ...
* In cosmology, the cosmic microwave background radiation CMB is a form of electromagnetic radiation filling the universe. The CMB's discovery in 1964 by astronomers
Arno Penzias Arno Allan Penzias (; born April 26, 1933) is an American physicist, radio astronomer and Nobel laureate in physics. Along with Robert Woodrow Wilson, he discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation, which helped establish the Big Bang ...
and Robert Wilson was the culmination of work initiated in the 1940s, earning them a Nobel Prize in 1978. 1964
Quark A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. All commonly o ...
* A quark is a type of elementary particle found in nucleons and other subatomic particles. They are a major constituent of matter, along with leptons. The quark model was first postulated independently by physicist
Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical ...
in 1964. 1964 1930 Lucifer * 1930 Lucifer was a main-belt asteroid discovered at the
United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station The United States Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station (NOFS), is an astronomical observatory near Flagstaff, Arizona, US. It is the national dark-sky observing facility under the United States Naval Observatory (USNO). NOFS and USNO combine ...
(NOFS) in Flagstaff, Arizona on October 29, 1964 by American astronomer
Elizabeth Roemer Elizabeth "Pat" Roemer (September 4, 1929April 8, 2016) was an American astronomer and educator who specialized in astronomy with a particular focus on comets and minor planets. She was well-known for the recovery of lost comets, as well as for h ...
. 1964
Hepatitis B virus ''Hepatitis B virus'' (HBV) is a partially double-stranded DNA virus, a species of the genus ''Orthohepadnavirus'' and a member of the ''Hepadnaviridae'' family of viruses. This virus causes the disease hepatitis B. Disease Despite there bein ...
* The Hepatitis B virus was discovered in 1965 by
Baruch Blumberg Baruch Samuel Blumberg (July 28, 1925 April 5, 2011), known as Barry Blumberg, was an American physician, geneticist, and co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Daniel Carleton Gajdusek), for his work on the hepat ...
, while working at the National Institutes of Health. 1965
Aspartame Aspartame is an artificial non-saccharide sweetener 200 times sweeter than sucrose and is commonly used as a sugar substitute in foods and beverages. It is a methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide with the trade names ...
* Aspartame is the name for an artificial, non-saccharide sweetener, aspartyl-phenylalanine-1-methyl ester; that is, a methyl ester of the dipeptide of the amino acidsaspartic acid and phenylalanine. Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by James M. Schlatter, a chemist working for G.D. Searle & Company. Schlatter had synthesized aspartame in the course of producing an anti-ulcer drug candidate. 1965
Pulsating white dwarfs A pulsating white dwarf is a white dwarf star whose luminosity varies due to non-radial gravity wave pulsations within itself. Known types of pulsating white dwarfs include DAV, or ZZ Ceti, stars, with hydrogen-dominated atmospheres and the spec ...
* A pulsating white dwarf is a
white dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...
star whose luminosity varies due to non-radial gravity wave pulsations within itself. The first pulsating white dwarf was discovered by Arlo U. Landolt when he observed in 1965 and 1966 that the luminosity of
HL Tau 76 HL Tau 76 is a variable white dwarf star of the DAV (or ZZ Ceti) type. It was observed by G. Haro and W. J. Luyten in 1961, and was the first variable white dwarf discovered when, in 1968, Arlo U. Landolt found that it varied in br ...
varied with a period of approximately 12.5 minutes. 1968
Up quark The up quark or u quark (symbol: u) is the lightest of all quarks, a type of elementary particle, and a significant constituent of matter. It, along with the down quark, forms the neutrons (one up quark, two down quarks) and protons (two up quark ...
* The up quark is a first-generation quark with a charge of +(2/3) e. The existence of up quarks was first postulated when
Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical ...
and
George Zweig George Zweig (; born May 30, 1937) is a Russian-American physicist. He was trained as a particle physicist under Richard Feynman. He introduced, independently of Murray Gell-Mann, the quark model (although he named it "aces"). He later turned his ...
developed the quark model in 1964, and the first evidence for them was found in deep inelastic scattering experiments in 1968. 1968
Down quark The down quark or d quark (symbol: d) is the second-lightest of all quarks, a type of elementary particle, and a major constituent of matter. Together with the up quark, it forms the neutrons (one up quark, two down quarks) and protons (two up q ...
* The down quark is a first-generation quark with a charge of −. It is the second-lightest of all the six of quarks, the lightest being the up quark. Down quarks are most commonly found in nucleons. Its protons contains one down quark and two up quarks, while neutrons contain two down quarks and one up quark. Down quarks were theorized by
Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical ...
and
George Zweig George Zweig (; born May 30, 1937) is a Russian-American physicist. He was trained as a particle physicist under Richard Feynman. He introduced, independently of Murray Gell-Mann, the quark model (although he named it "aces"). He later turned his ...
when they discovered the quark model in 1968. 1969
Mosher's acid Mosher's acid, or α-methoxy-α-trifluoromethylphenylacetic acid (MTPA) is a carboxylic acid which was first used by Harry Stone Mosher as a chiral derivatizing agent. It is a chiral molecule, consisting of ''R'' and ''S'' enantiomers. Applicati ...
* Mosher's acid, or α-methoxytrifluorophenylacetic acid, discovered by Harry S. Mosher in 1969, is a carboxylic acid which was first used as a chiral derivitizing agent. 1969 Interstellar formaldehyde * Interstellar formaldehyde was first discovered in 1969 by Lewis Snyder, David Buhl, B. Zuckerman and Patrick Palmer using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Formaldehyde was detected by means of the 111 - 110 ground state rotational transition at 4830 MHz. 1970
Reverse transcriptase A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA (cDNA) from an RNA template, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, ...
* In biochemistry, a reverse transcriptase, also known as RNA-dependent DNA polymerase, is a DNA polymerase enzyme that transcribes single-stranded RNA into double-stranded DNA. It was discovered by
Howard Temin Howard Martin Temin (December 10, 1934 – February 9, 1994) was an American geneticist and virologist. He discovered reverse transcriptase in the 1970s at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for which he shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Phy ...
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and independently by
David Baltimore David Baltimore (born March 7, 1938) is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is President Emeritus and Distinguished Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technolo ...
in 1970 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1972
Opiate receptor Opioid receptors are a group of inhibitory G protein-coupled receptors with opioids as ligands. The endogenous opioids are dynorphins, enkephalins, endorphins, endomorphins and nociceptin. The opioid receptors are ~40% identical to somatostatin ...
s * Opioid receptors are a group of G protein-coupled receptors with opioids as ligands. The endogenous opioids are dynorphins, enkephalins, endorphins, endomorphins, and nociceptin. The opioid receptors are ~40% identical to somatostatin receptors (SSTRs). Opiate receptors were discovered in 1972 by the American neuroscientist and pharmacologist named
Candace Pert Candace Beebe Pert (June 26, 1946 – September 12, 2013) was an American neuroscientist and pharmacologist who discovered the opiate receptor, the cellular binding site for endorphins in the brain. Early life and education She was born on June ...
. 1974 Australopithecus "Lucy" Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, several hundred pieces of bone representing about 40% of the skeleton of an individual Australopithecus afarensis. Lucy is reckoned to have lived 3.2 million years ago. This
hominid The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...
was significant as the skeleton shows evidence of small skull capacity akin to that of
ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...
s and of
bipedal Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning 'two feet' (from Latin ''bis'' 'double' ...
upright walk akin to that of
humans Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
, providing further evidence that bipedalism preceded increase in brain size in human evolution. While working in collaboration with a joint French-British-American team, Lucy was discovered in
Hadar, Ethiopia Hadar (also spelled ''Qad daqar'', ''Qadaqar''; Afar "white 'qidi''stream 'daqar'')Jon Kalb ''Adventures in the Bone Trade'' (New York: Copernicus Books, 2001), p. 83 is a paleontological site in Mille district, Administrative Zone 1 of the ...
on November 24, 1974, when American paleoanthropologist
Donald Johanson Donald Carl Johanson (born June 28, 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist. He is known for discovering, with Yves Coppens and Maurice Taieb, the fossil of a female hominin australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hada ...
, coaxed away from his paperwork by graduate student Tom Gray for a spur-of-the-moment survey, caught the glint of a white fossilized bone out of the corner of his eye, and recognized it as hominid. Later described as the first known member of ''
Australopithecus afarensis ''Australopithecus afarensis'' is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived from about 3.9–2.9 million years ago (mya) in the Pliocene of East Africa. The first fossils were discovered in the 1930s, but major fossil finds would not ...
''. Dr. Johanson's girlfriend suggested she be named "Lucy" after the Beatles' song "
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 album '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. It was written primarily by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partners ...
" which was played repeatedly during the night of the discovery. 1974 J/ψ mesons * The J/ψ is a subatomic particle, a flavor-neutral meson consisting of a charm quark and a charm anti-quark. Mesons formed by a bound state of a charm quark and a charm anti-quark are generally known as "charmonium". Its discovery was made independently by two research groups, one at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, headed by
Burton Richter Burton Richter (March 22, 1931 – July 18, 2018) was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by S ...
, and one at the
Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
, headed by Samuel Ting at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They accidentally discovered they had found the same particle, and both announced their discoveries on November 11, 1974. 1974
Charm quark The charm quark, charmed quark or c quark (from its symbol, c) is the third-most massive of all quarks, a type of elementary particle. Charm quarks are found in hadrons, which are subatomic particles made of quarks. Examples of hadrons containin ...
* The charm quark is a second-generation quark with an electric charge of +2⁄3 e. It is the third most massive of the quarks, at about 1.5 GeV/c2 and roughly one and a half times the mass of the proton. It was predicted in 1964 by
Sheldon Glashow Sheldon Lee Glashow (, ; born December 5, 1932) is a Nobel Prize-winning American theoretical physicist. He is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Harvard U ...
and
James Bjorken James Daniel "BJ" Bjorken (born 1934) is an American theoretical physicist. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1954, received a BS in physics from MIT in 1956, and obtained his PhD from Stanford University in 1959. He was a visiting scholar at the Insti ...
and first observed in November 1974, with the simultaneous discovery of the J/ψ, J/ψ meson charm particle at Stanford Linear Accererator Center by a group led by
Burton Richter Burton Richter (March 22, 1931 – July 18, 2018) was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by S ...
and at
Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
by a group led by Samuel C. C. Ting. 1974
Binary pulsar A binary pulsar is a pulsar with a binary companion, often a white dwarf or neutron star. (In at least one case, the double pulsar PSR J0737-3039, the companion neutron star is another pulsar as well.) Binary pulsars are one of the few objects ...
s * A binary pulsar is a pulsar with a binary companion, often another pulsar, white dwarf or neutron star. The first binary pulsar, PSR 1913+16 or the "Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar" was discovered in 1974 at
Arecibo Arecibo (; ) is a city and municipality on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Utuado and Ciales; east of Hatillo; and west of Barceloneta and Florida. It is about west of San Juan, th ...
by Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. and
Russell Hulse Russell Alan Hulse (born November 28, 1950) is an American physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with his thesis advisor Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr., "''for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up n ...
, for which they won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. 1974
Leda Leda may refer to: Mythology * Leda (mythology), queen of Sparta and mother of Helen of Troy in Greek mythology Places * Leda, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia * Leda makeshift settlement, Bangladesh, a refugee camp ...
* Leda is a prograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by Charles T. Kowal at the
Palomar Observatory Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...
on September 14, 1974. 1974
Seaborgium Seaborgium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Sg and atomic number 106. It is named after the American nuclear chemist Glenn T. Seaborg. As a synthetic element, it can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature. It is als ...
* Seaborgium is a chemical element with the symbol Sg and atomic number 106. Seaborgium is a synthetic element whose most stable isotope 271Sg has a half-life of 1.9 minutes. Chemistry experiments with seaborgium have firmly placed it in group 6 as a heavier homologue to tungsten. Seaborgium was independently discovered by groups at the
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, russian: Объединённый институт ядерных исследований, ОИЯИ), in Dubna, Moscow Oblast (110 km north of Moscow), Russia, is an international research c ...
and
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...
in 1974, and was named in honor of the American chemist
Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...
. 1975 1983 Bok * 1983 Bok is a minor planet discovered on June 9, 1975 by American astronomer
Elizabeth Roemer Elizabeth "Pat" Roemer (September 4, 1929April 8, 2016) was an American astronomer and educator who specialized in astronomy with a particular focus on comets and minor planets. She was well-known for the recovery of lost comets, as well as for h ...
at
Kitt Peak National Observatory The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomical observatory located on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono Oʼodham Nation, west-southwest of Tucson, Arizona. With more than ...
in Arizona. As a minor planet, 1983 Bok was named in honor of Bart J. and
Priscilla Fairfield Bok Priscilla Fairfield Bok (April 14, 1896 – November 1975) was an American astronomer and the wife of Dutch-born astronomer Bart Bok, Director of Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia and later of Steward Observatory in Arizona, US. Their harmon ...
. 1975
Themisto In Greek mythology, Themisto (; Ancient Greek: Θεμιστώ) was a Ancient Thessaly, Thessalin princess as the daughter of King Hypseus of LapithsBibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus), Apollodorus, 1.9.2 and the naiad Chlidanope. Her name is derived ...
* Themisto is a small prograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by Charles T. Kowal and
Elizabeth Roemer Elizabeth "Pat" Roemer (September 4, 1929April 8, 2016) was an American astronomer and educator who specialized in astronomy with a particular focus on comets and minor planets. She was well-known for the recovery of lost comets, as well as for h ...
in 1975. 1975 Amarillo Starlight * The Amarillo Starlight is a 16.37-carat white diamond that was discovered in 1975 by W. W. Johnson of Amarillo, Texas while vacationing at the
Crater of Diamonds State Park Crater of Diamonds State Park is a Arkansas state park in Pike County, Arkansas, in the United States. The park features a 37.5-acre (15.2 ha) plowed field, the world's only diamond-bearing site accessible to the public. Diamonds have continuou ...
in Arkansas. The Amarillo Starlight was later cut into a 7.54-carat marquise shape. 1976
D meson The D mesons are the lightest particle containing charm quarks. They are often studied to gain knowledge on the weak interaction. The strange D mesons (Ds) were called "F mesons" prior to 1986. Overview The D mesons were discove ...
s * D mesons are the lightest particle containing charm quarks. They are often studied to gain knowledge on the weak interaction. Since the D meson is the lightest meson containing a charm quark, it must change the charm quark into another quark to decay. D mesons were discovered in 1976 during the
Mark I Mark I or Mark 1 often refers to the first version of a weapon or military vehicle, and is sometimes used in a similar fashion in civilian product development. In some instances, the Arabic numeral "1" is substituted for the Roman numeral "I". " ...
experiments at the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
. 1976 Hepatitis B virus vaccine * After
Baruch Samuel Blumberg Baruch Samuel Blumberg (July 28, 1925 April 5, 2011), known as Barry Blumberg, was an American physician, geneticist, and co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Daniel Carleton Gajdusek), for his work on the hepa ...
discovered the Hepatitis B virus in 1964, he later developed a diagnostic test and vaccine for the
Hepatitis B virus ''Hepatitis B virus'' (HBV) is a partially double-stranded DNA virus, a species of the genus ''Orthohepadnavirus'' and a member of the ''Hepadnaviridae'' family of viruses. This virus causes the disease hepatitis B. Disease Despite there bein ...
in 1976. 1977
Tau lepton The tau (), also called the tau lepton, tau particle, tauon or tau electron, is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with negative electric charge and a spin of . Like the electron, the muon, and the three neutrinos, the tau is a l ...
* The tau lepton is a negatively charged elementary particle with a lifetime of 2.9×10−13 s and a mass of 1,777 MeV/c2. It was detected in a series of experiments between 1974 and 1977 by
Martin Lewis Perl Martin Lewis Perl (June 24, 1927 – September 30, 2014) was an American chemical engineer and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995 for his discovery of the tau lepton. Life and career Perl was born in New York City, New York. Hi ...
with his colleagues at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...
. 1977
Rings of Uranus The rings of Uranus are intermediate in complexity between the more extensive set around Saturn and the simpler systems around Jupiter and Neptune. The rings of Uranus were discovered on March 10, 1977, by James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and J ...
The planet
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
has a system of rings intermediate in complexity between the more extensive set around
Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...
and the simpler systems around
Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...
and
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
. The rings of Uranus were discovered on March 10, 1977, by James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and Douglas J. Mink. More than 200 years ago,
William Herschel Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline H ...
also reported observing rings, but modern astronomers are skeptical that he could actually have noticed them, as they are very dark and faint. 1977
Upsilon meson The Upsilon meson () is a quarkonium state (i.e. flavourless meson) formed from a bottom quark and its antiparticle. It was discovered by the E288 experiment team, headed by Leon Lederman, at Fermilab in 1977, and was the first particle contain ...
s * The upsilon meson is a flavorless meson formed from a bottom quark and its antiparticle. It was discovered by the E288 collaboration, headed by
Leon Lederman Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to: Places Europe * León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León * Province of León, Spain * Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again f ...
, at Fermilab in 1977, and was the first particle containing a bottom quark to be discovered because it is the lightest that can be produced without additional massive particles. It has a mean lifetime of 1.21×10−20 second and a mass about 10 GeV. 1977
Bottom quark The bottom quark or b quark, also known as the beauty quark, is a third-generation heavy quark with a charge of −  ''e''. All quarks are described in a similar way by electroweak and quantum chromodynamics, but the bottom quark has exc ...
* The bottom quark is a third-generation quark with a charge of −1⁄3 e. The bottom quark was discovered by the E288 experiment at Fermilab in 1977 when collisions produced bottomonium. 1978
Restriction endonucleases A restriction enzyme, restriction endonuclease, REase, ENase or'' restrictase '' is an enzyme that cleaves DNA into fragments at or near specific recognition sites within molecules known as restriction sites. Restriction enzymes are one class o ...
* A restriction enzyme is an enzyme that cuts double-stranded or single stranded DNA at specific recognition nucleotide sequences known as restriction sites. Such enzymes, found in bacteria and archaea, are thought to have evolved to provide a defense mechanism against invading viruses. Inside a bacterial host, the restriction enzymes selectively cut up foreign DNA in a process called restriction; host DNA is methylated by a modification enzyme to protect it from the restriction enzyme's activity. The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded, in 1978, to
Daniel Nathans Daniel Nathans (October 30, 1928 – November 16, 1999) was an American microbiologist. He shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application in restriction mapping. Early life a ...
,
Werner Arber Werner Arber (born 3 June 1929 in Gränichen, Aargau) is a Swiss microbiologist and geneticist. Along with American researchers Hamilton Smith and Daniel Nathans, Werner Arber shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the disco ...
, and Hamilton O. Smith for the discovery of restriction endonucleases. 1978
Charon In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (; grc, Χάρων) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of Hades, the Greek underworld. He carries the souls of those who have been given funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, which separate the wo ...
* Charon, discovered by
James W. Christy James Walter "Jim" Christy (born September 15, 1938) is an American astronomer known for discovering Charon, the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto. Early years Christy was born in 1938 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He attended the University of ...
on June 22, 1978 while working at the
United States Naval Observatory United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeeping data for the United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense. Established in 1830 as the Depo ...
, is the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto. 1979
Metis Metis or Métis may refer to: Ethnic groups * Métis, recognized Indigenous communities in Canada and America whose distinct culture and language emerged after early intermarriage between First Nations peoples and early European settlers, prima ...
* Metis is the innermost moon of Jupiter. It was discovered in 1979 by Stephen Synnott in images taken by
Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin ''Voyager 2'', ''Voya ...
. 1979
Thebe Thebe may refer to: * Any of several female characters in Greek mythology - see List of mythological figures named Thebe * Thebe (moon), a moon of Jupiter * Thebe (currency), 1/100 of a Botswana pula * Thebe, an Amazons, Amazon * Thebe, alternate ...
* Thebe is the fourth of Jupiter's moons by distance from the planet. It was discovered by Stephen Synnott in images from the
Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin ''Voyager 2'', ''Voya ...
space probe taken on March 5, 1979 while orbiting around Jupiter. 1979
Rings of Jupiter Ring may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell :(hence) to initiate a telephone connection Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...
* The planet Jupiter has a system of rings, known as the rings of Jupiter or the Jovian ring system. It was the third ring system to be discovered in the Solar System, after those of Saturn and Uranus and was first observed in 1979 by the
Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin ''Voyager 2'', ''Voya ...
space probe. 1980
Oncogene An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, these genes are often mutated, or expressed at high levels.
* An oncogene is a gene that is mutated or expressed at high levels, and thus helps turn a normal cell into a tumor cell. In the late 1970s, Robert Weinberg and his team of researchers began the search for a human oncogene. Using gene transfer techniques, researchers in his lab inserted DNA from human bladder tumor cells into normal animal cells. When the animal cells turned cancerous, Dr. Weinberg's associates began inserting smaller pieces of DNA into the normal cell. By 1980, they found a single fragment that turned the normal cell cancerous. This gene was found to belong to a sub-family of related genes, called
ras Ras or RAS may refer to: Arts and media * RAS Records Real Authentic Sound, a reggae record label * Rundfunk Anstalt Südtirol, a south Tyrolese public broadcasting service * Rás 1, an Icelandic radio station * Rás 2, an Icelandic radio stati ...
, that was later discovered to play a role in causing bladder, lung, and colon cancer in both rats and humans. More results emerged in 1982 when Dr. Weinberg's laboratory discovered that a single, subtle genetic glitch in this oncogene topples the delicate balance between a bladder cell's normal and cancerous states. 1980 Pandora * Pandora is an inner satellite of Saturn. It was discovered in 1980 from photos taken by
Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin ''Voyager 2'', ''Voya ...
, and was provisionally designated S/1980 S 26. 1980
Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning "forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, know ...
* Prometheus is an inner satellite of Saturn that was discovered in 1980 from photos taken by
Voyager 1 ''Voyager 1'' is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin ''Voyager 2'', ''Voya ...
. It was provisionally designated S/1980 S 27. 1980
Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...
* Atlas is a moon of Saturn that was discovered by
Richard Terrile Richard John Terrile (born March 22, 1951, in New York) is a Voyager scientist who discovered several moons of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. He works for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Terrile is a supporter of the simulation hypothesis, th ...
in 1980 from Voyager photos and was designated S/1980 S 28. 1981
Larissa Larissa (; el, Λάρισα, , ) is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fifth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 144,651 according to the 2011 census. It is also capital of the Larissa regiona ...
* Larissa, also known as Neptune VII, is the fifth-closest inner satellite of
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
. It was first discovered by Harold J. Reitsema, William B. Hubbard, Larry A. Lebofsky, and
David J. Tholen David James Tholen (born 1955) is an American astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii. He holds a 1984 PhD from the University of Arizona, and specializes in planetary and Solar System astronomy. He is a discovere ...
based on fortuitous ground-based stellar occultation observations on May 24, 1981, and given the temporary designation S/1981 N 1, being announced on May 29, 1981. 1983
Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV)—known as Pneumovax 23 (PPV-23)—is the first pneumococcal vaccine derived from a capsular polysaccharide. The polysaccharide antigens were used to induce type-specific antibodies that enhanced op ...
* Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, also known as Pneumovax, is a vaccine used to prevent Streptococcus pneumoniae infections such as pneumonia and septicaemia. It was discovered by American scientists at Merck & Co. in 1983. 1984 ''Whydah'' wreckage First launched in 1715 from London, England, the ''Whydah'' was a three-masted ship of galley-style design measuring in length, rated at 300 tons burden, and could travel at speeds up to . Christened ''Whydah'' after the West African slave trading kingdom of
Ouidah Ouidah () or Whydah (; ''Ouidah'', ''Juida'', and ''Juda'' by the French; ''Ajudá'' by the Portuguese; and ''Fida'' by the Dutch) and known locally as Glexwe, formerly the chief port of the Kingdom of Whydah, is a city on the coast of the Repub ...
, the vessel was configured as a heavily armed trading and transport ship for use in the
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
, carrying goods from England to exchange for slaves in
West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...
. It would then travel to the Caribbean to trade the slaves for precious metals, sugar, indigo, and medicinal ingredients, which would then be transported back to England. Captained by the English pirate "Black Sam" Bellamy, the ''Whydah'', on April 26, 1717, sailed into a violent storm dangerously close to
Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...
and was eventually driven onto the shoals at
Wellfleet, Massachusetts Wellfleet is a New England town, town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, and is located halfway between the "tip" and "elbow" of Cape Cod. The town had a population of 3,566 at the 2020 United S ...
. At midnight she hit a sandbar in of water some from the coast of what is now Marconi Beach. Pummelled by -an-hour winds and 30 to waves, the main mast snapped, pulling the ship into some of water where she violently capsized, taking Bellamy, all but two of his 145 men, and over 4.5 tons of gold, silver and jewels with it. After years of exhaustive searching, it was in 1984 that world headlines were made when American archeological explorer
Barry Clifford Barry Clifford (born May 30, 1945) is an American underwater archaeological explorer, best known for discovering the remains of Samuel Bellamy's wrecked pirate ship ''Whydah'' ronounced ''wih-duh'' the only fully verified and authenticated pirat ...
found the only solidly-identified pirate shipwreck ever discovered, the ''Whydah''. Two-hundred thousand artifacts and sunken treasures were discovered in the shipwreck as well. 1985 Puck * Puck is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered in December 1985 by the
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
spacecraft. 1985 RMS ''Titanic'' wreckage The RMS ''Titanic'' was an ''Olympic'' class passenger liner owned by the
White Star Line The White Star Line was a British shipping company. Founded out of the remains of a defunct packet company, it gradually rose up to become one of the most prominent shipping lines in the world, providing passenger and cargo services between t ...
and was built at the
Harland and Wolff Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...
shipyard in Belfast, in what is now Northern Ireland. At the time of her construction, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world. Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912, four days into the ship's maiden voyage, ''Titanic'' struck an iceberg and sank two hours and forty minutes later, early on April 15, 1912. The sinking resulted in the deaths of 1,517 of the 2,223 people on board, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. After nearly 74 years of being lost at sea on the bottom of the ocean floor, a joint Franco-American expedition led by American oceanographer Dr. Robert D. Ballard, discovered the wreckage of the RMS ''Titanic'' two miles (3 km) beneath the waves of the
North Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...
on September 1, 1985. Ballard was then forced to wait a year for weather conditions favorable to a crewed mission to view the wreck at close range. In 1986, Ballard and his two-man crew, in the
ALVIN Alvin may refer to: Places Canada *Alvin, British Columbia United States *Alvin, Colorado *Alvin, Georgia *Alvin, Illinois * Alvin, Michigan *Alvin, Texas * Alvin, Wisconsin, a town *Alvin (community), Wisconsin, an unincorporated community Other ...
submersible, made the first two and-a-half hour descent to the ocean floor to view the wreck first-hand. Over the next few days, they descended again and again and, using the Jason Jr. remote camera, recorded the first scenes of the ruined interior of the luxury liner. 1986 Portia * Portia is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 3, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 1. 1986 Juliet * Juliet is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 3, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 2. 1986
Cressida Cressida (; also Criseida, Cresseid or Criseyde) is a character who appears in many Medieval and Renaissance retellings of the story of the Trojan War. She is a Trojan woman, the daughter of Calchas, a Greek seer. She falls in love with Troilus, ...
* Cressida is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 9, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 3. 1986 Rosalind * Rosalind is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 13, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 4. 1986
Belinda Belinda is a feminine given name of unknown origin, apparently coined from Italian ''bella'', meaning "beautiful". Alternatively it may be derived from the Old High German name ''Betlinde'', which possibly meant "bright serpent" or "bright linde ...
* Belinda is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 13, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 5. 1986
Desdemona Desdemona () is a character in William Shakespeare's play ''Othello'' (c. 1601–1604). Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a Moorish Venetian ...
* Desdemona is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 13, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 6. 1986
Cordelia Cordelia is a feminine given name. It was borne by the tragic heroine of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'' (1606), a character based on the List of legendary kings of Britain, legendary queen Cordelia of Britain, Cordelia. The name is of uncertain origi ...
* Cordelia is the inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 20, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 7. 1986
Ophelia Ophelia () is a character in William Shakespeare's drama ''Hamlet'' (1599–1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet's actions, ends up in ...
* Ophelia is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 20, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 8. 1986
Bianca Bianca is a feminine given name. It means "white" and is an Italian cognate of Blanche. Variants * Blanche: French * Bianca: Italian * Bianka ( Polish, Hungarian, Slovak, German, English, French, Icelandic, Finnish, Dutch, Norwegian, C ...
* Bianca is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
on January 23, 1986 and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 9. 1986
Tumor suppressor gene A tumor suppressor gene (TSG), or anti-oncogene, is a gene that regulates a cell during cell division and replication. If the cell grows uncontrollably, it will result in cancer. When a tumor suppressor gene is mutated, it results in a loss or red ...
* A tumor suppressor gene, or anti-oncogene, is a gene that protects a cell from one step on the path to cancer. When this gene is mutated to cause a loss or reduction in its function, the cell can progress to cancer, usually in combination with other genetic changes. In 1986, Robert Weinberg and a team of researchers working under his direction made a seminal discovery when they isolated Rb, or the
retinoblastoma protein The retinoblastoma protein (protein name abbreviated pRb; gene name abbreviated ''Rb'', ''RB'' or ''RB1'') is a proto-oncogenic tumor suppressor protein that is dysfunctional in several major cancers. One function of pRb is to prevent excessive ...
, the first known growth-suppressor gene. 1989
Rings of Neptune The rings of Neptune consist primarily of five principal rings. They were first discovered (as "arcs") by simultaneous observations of a stellar occultation on 22 July 1984 by André Brahic's and William B. Hubbard's teams at La Silla Observato ...
* The rings of
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
were discovered in 1989 by the
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
spacecraft. 1989
Proteus In Greek mythology, Proteus (; Ancient Greek: Πρωτεύς, ''Prōteus'') is an early prophetic sea-god or god of rivers and oceanic bodies of water, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea" ''(hálios gérôn)''. ...
* Proteus, also known as Neptune VIII, is
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
's largest inner satellite. Proteus was discovered from the images taken by
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
during the Neptune flyby in 1989. 1989 Despina * Despina, also known as Neptune V, is the third-closest inner satellite of
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
. Despina was discovered in late July 1989 from the images taken by the
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
. It was given the temporary designation S/1989 N 3. 1989
Galatea Galatea is an ancient Greek name meaning "she who is milk-white". Galatea, Galathea or Gallathea may refer to: In mythology * Galatea (Greek myth), three different mythological figures In the arts * ''Aci, Galatea e Polifemo'', cantata by H ...
* Galatea, also known as Neptune VI, is the fourth-closest inner satellite of
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
. Galatea was discovered in late July 1989 from the images taken by the
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
. It was given the temporary designation S/1989 N 4. 1989
Thalassa Thalassa (; grc-gre, Θάλασσα, Thálassa, sea; Attic Greek: , ''Thálatta'') was the general word for 'sea' and for its divine female personification in Greek mythology. The word may have been of Pre-Greek origin. Mythology According t ...
* Thalassa, also known as Neptune IV, is the second inner satellite of
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
. It was discovered sometime before mid-September 1989 from the images taken by the
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
. It was given the temporary designation S/1989 N 5. 1989
Naiad In Greek mythology, the naiads (; grc-gre, ναϊάδες, naïádes) are a type of female spirit, or nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water. They are distinct from river gods, who ...
* Naiad, also known as Neptune III, is the inner satellite of
Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
. It was discovered sometime before mid-September 1989 from the images taken by the
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
. The last moon to be discovered during the flyby, it was designated S/1989 N 6. 1989 ''Bismarck'' wreckage * The German battleship ''Bismarck'' was one of the most famous warships of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. As the lead ship of the , and named after the 19th century German Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...
, ''Bismarck'' displaced more than 50,000 tonnes fully loaded and was the largest warship then commissioned. Fleet Air Arm Swordfish biplanes launched from the carrier torpedoed the ship and jammed her rudder, allowing Royal Navy units to catch up with her. In the ensuing battle on the morning of May 27, 1941, ''Bismarck'' was heavily attacked for almost two hours before sinking. After the discovery of the wreckage of the in 1985, Dr. Robert D. Ballard's next goal was to find and film the wreck of the ''Bismarck''. The search for the wreck began in July 1988, but his first expedition brought no success. A second expedition was mounted in late May 1989, and on June 8, 1989, after combing an area of some , Ballard and his team finally found ''Bismarcks'' remains. The wreck lies in the bottom of the
Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
some west of Brest, France at a depth of 4,790 meters (15,700 ft). 1990 Strawn-Wagner Diamond The Strawn-Wagner Diamond is a rare 3.03 carat diamond that is certified by the
American Gem Society The American Gem Society (AGS) is a trade association of retail jewelers, independent appraisers, suppliers, and selective industry members, which was founded in 1934 by Robert M. Shipley. The Society is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, along with th ...
(AGS) as the world's most perfect diamond in terms of its cut and the highest grade possible, the "Triple Zero". The Strawn-Wagner Diamond was discovered in 1990 at the
Crater of Diamonds State Park Crater of Diamonds State Park is a Arkansas state park in Pike County, Arkansas, in the United States. The park features a 37.5-acre (15.2 ha) plowed field, the world's only diamond-bearing site accessible to the public. Diamonds have continuou ...
by Shirley Strawn of Murfreesboro, Arkansas. 1993
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...
* Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was a comet that broke apart and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of solar system objects. The collision provided new information about Jupiter and highlighted its role in reducing space debris in the inner solar system. Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was co-discovered photographically by the husband and wife scientific team of
Carolyn S. Shoemaker Carolyn Jean Spellmann Shoemaker (June 24, 1929 – August 13, 2021) was an American astronomer and a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. She discovered 32 comets (then a record for the most by an individual) and more than 500 astero ...
and
Eugene M. Shoemaker Eugene Merle Shoemaker (April 28, 1928 – July 18, 1997) was an American geologist. He co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn S. Shoemaker and David H. Levy. This comet hit Jupiter in July 1994: the impact was televi ...
along with Canadian-born astronomer
David H. Levy David Howard Levy (born May 22, 1948) is a Canadian amateur astronomer, science writer and discoverer of comets and minor planets, who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in 1993, which collided with the planet Jupiter in 1994. Biography L ...
on March 24, 1993, using the 0.46-m (18-in.) Schmidt telescope at
Palomar Observatory Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...
in California. Its discovery was a serendipitous product of their continuing search for "near-Earth objects", and the "9" indicates that it was the ninth short-period comet (period less than 200 years) discovered by this team. 1995
Top quark The top quark, sometimes also referred to as the truth quark, (symbol: t) is the most massive of all observed elementary particles. It derives its mass from its coupling to the Higgs Boson. This coupling y_ is very close to unity; in the Standard ...
* The top quark is the third-generation up-type quark with a charge of +(2/3)e. It was discovered in 1995 by the CDF and D0 experiments at Fermilab and is the most massive of known elementary particles. 1995
Comet Hale-Bopp A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are ...
* Comet Hale-Bopp was arguably the most widely observed comet of the 20th century, and one of the brightest seen for many decades and it was visible to the naked eye for a record 18 months when it passed near planet Earth. Hale-Bopp was discovered by Alan Hale and
Thomas Bopp Thomas Joel Bopp (October 15, 1949 – January 5, 2018) was an American amateur astronomer. In 1995, he discovered comet Hale–Bopp; Alan Hale discovered it independently at almost the same time, and it was thus named after both of them. At t ...
on July 23, 1995 at a great distance from the Sun, raising expectations that the comet would brighten considerably by the time it passed close to Earth. Although predicting the brightness of comets with any degree of accuracy is very difficult, Hale-Bopp met or exceeded most predictions when it passed perihelion on April 1, 1997. 1998 USS ''Yorktown'' (CV-5) wreckage * The third USS ''Yorktown'' in the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
, lead ship of the '' Yorktown class'' of aircraft carriers, was laid down on May 21, 1934 at Newport News, Virginia, by the
Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is the largest industrial employer in Virginia, and sole designer, builder and refueler of United States Navy aircraft carriers and one of two providers of U.S. Navy ...
. ''Yorktown'' was launched on April 4, 1936, sponsored by First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...
, and commissioned at Norfolk, Virginia, on September 30, 1937 with Captain Ernest D. McWhorter in command. ''Yorktown'' was hit by air-launched torpedoes during the
Battle of Midway The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The U.S. Navy under Adm ...
on June 6, 1942. '' Hiryū'', the sole surviving Japanese aircraft carrier, wasted little time in counter-attacking. The first wave of Japanese dive bombers badly damaged ''Yorktown'' with three bomb hits that snuffed out her boilers, immobilizing her, yet her damage control teams patched her up so effectively that the second wave's torpedo bombers mistook her for an undamaged carrier. Despite Japanese hopes to even the odds by eliminating two carriers with two strikes, ''Yorktown'' absorbed both Japanese attacks, the second wave mistakenly believing Yorktown had already been sunk and they were attacking . After two torpedo hits, ''Yorktown'' lost power and developed a 26° list to port, which put her out of action and forced Admiral
Frank J. Fletcher Frank Jack Fletcher (April 29, 1885 – April 25, 1973) was an Admiral (United States), admiral in the United States Navy during World War II. Fletcher commanded five different Task force#United States Navy, task forces through WWII; he was the ...
to move his command staff to the heavy cruiser Astoria. The second attempt at salvage, however, would never be made. Throughout the night of June 6 and into the morning of June 7, ''Yorktown'' remained stubbornly afloat. By 0530 on June 7, however, the men in the ships nearby noted that the carrier's list was rapidly increasing to port. At 0701, the ship turned over on her port side and sank in 3,000 fathoms (5,500 m) of water, her battle flags still flying. On May 19, 1998, the wreck of the ''Yorktown'' was discovered by Dr. Robert D. Ballard, American oceanographer and discoverer of the wreck of the RMS ''Titanic''. The wreck of the ''Yorktown'' was found beneath the surface and was photographed. 1998 Embryonic stem cell lines * A breakthrough in human embryonic stem cell research came in November 1998 when a group led by Dr. James Thomson at the University of Wisconsin–Madison first discovered a technique in order to isolate and grow cells which derived from human blastocysts, could one day lead to major medical advancements in organ transplantation as well as gene therapy and treatment of maladies such as paralysis, diabetes, cancer, and AIDS.


Twenty-first century

2001 Interstellar vinyl alcohol * Between May and June 2001, astronomers A. J. Apponi and Barry Turner co-discovered vinyl alcohol in the molecular cloud Sagittarius B using the National Science Foundation's 12-meter radio telescope at the
Kitt Peak National Observatory The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomical observatory located on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono Oʼodham Nation, west-southwest of Tucson, Arizona. With more than ...
. 2003 Sedna * 90377 Sedna is a trans-Neptunian object and a likely dwarf planet. For most of its orbit Sedna is farther from the Sun than any other known dwarf planet candidate. In 2003, Sedna was co-discovered by
Michael E. Brown Michael E. Brown (born June 5, 1965) is an American astronomer, who has been professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 2003. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), including ...
,
Chad Trujillo Chadwick A. Trujillo (born November 22, 1973) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and the co-discoverer of Eris, the most massive dwarf planet known in the Solar System. Trujillo works with computer software and has examined ...
, and
David Rabinowitz David Lincoln Rabinowitz (born 1960) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and researcher at Yale University. Career David Rabinowitz has built CCD cameras and software for the detection of near-Earth and Kuiper belt obje ...
using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at
Palomar Observatory Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...
. 2003
Psamathe Psamathe may refer to: Greek mythology * Psamathe (Nereid) * Psamathe (Crotopus), Daughter of Crotopus Other * Psamathe (moon), moon of Neptune * ''Psamathe'' (polychaete), polychaete Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine ...
* Psamathe, also known as Neptune X, is a retrograde irregular satellite of Neptune. Psamathe was co-discovered by
Scott S. Sheppard Scott Sander Sheppard (born 1977) is an American astronomer and a discoverer of numerous moons, comets and minor planets in the outer Solar System. He is an astronomer in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Scie ...
and
David C. Jewitt David Clifford Jewitt (born 1958) is a British-American astronomer who studies the Solar System, especially its minor bodies. He is based at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is a Member of the Institute for Geophysics and Pl ...
in 2003. 2003 Mab * Mab is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was co-discovered by
Mark R. Showalter Mark Robert Showalter (born December 5, 1957) is a Senior Research Scientist at the SETI Institute. He is the discoverer of six moons and three planetary rings. He is the Principal Investigator of NASA's Planetary Data System Rings Node, a co-inv ...
and Jack J. Lissauer in 2003 using the
Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...
. 2003 Perdita * Perdita is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. Perdita's discovery was complicated. The first photographs of Perdita were taken by the
Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. As a part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, ''Voyager 1'', on a ...
spacecraft in 1986, but it was not recognized from the photographs for more than a decade. In 1999, the moon was noticed by
Erich Karkoschka Erich Karkoschka (born 1955) is a planetary researcher at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona. He discovered a satellite of Uranus, S/1986 U 10 (later named Perdita (moon), Perdita) on photographs taken by the Voyager 2 ...
and reported. Because no further pictures could be taken to confirm its existence, it was officially demoted in 2001. However, in 2003, pictures taken by the
Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...
managed to pick up an object where Perdita was supposed to be, finally confirming its existence. 2003
Cupid In classical mythology, Cupid (Latin Cupīdō , meaning "passionate desire") is the god of desire, lust, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus (mythology), Venus and the god of war Mar ...
* Cupid is an inner satellite of
Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek god of the sky, Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars (mythology), Mars), grandfather ...
. It was co-discovered by
Mark R. Showalter Mark Robert Showalter (born December 5, 1957) is a Senior Research Scientist at the SETI Institute. He is the discoverer of six moons and three planetary rings. He is the Principal Investigator of NASA's Planetary Data System Rings Node, a co-inv ...
and Jack J. Lissauer in 2003 using the
Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...
. 2004
Orcus Orcus ( la, Orcus) was a god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths in Etruscan and Roman mythology. As with Hades, the name of the god was also used for the underworld itself. In the later tradition, he was conflated with Dis Pater. A ...
* 90482 Orcus is a large Kuiper Belt object (KBO) with a large companion and is likely a dwarf planet. Orcus was co-discovered by
Chad Trujillo Chadwick A. Trujillo (born November 22, 1973) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and the co-discoverer of Eris, the most massive dwarf planet known in the Solar System. Trujillo works with computer software and has examined ...
,
Michael E. Brown Michael E. Brown (born June 5, 1965) is an American astronomer, who has been professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 2003. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), including ...
, and
David Rabinowitz David Lincoln Rabinowitz (born 1960) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and researcher at Yale University. Career David Rabinowitz has built CCD cameras and software for the detection of near-Earth and Kuiper belt obje ...
in 2004. 2005
Makemake Makemake (minor-planet designation 136472 Makemake) is a dwarf planet and – depending on how they are defined – the second-largest Kuiper belt object in the classical population, with a diameter approximately 60% that of Pluto. It ...
* Makemake, formally designated (136472) Makemake, is the third-largest known dwarf planet in the
Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...
and one of the two largest
Kuiper belt objects The Kuiper belt () is a circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 astronomical units (AU) to approximately 50 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times ...
(KBO). Its diameter is roughly three-quarters that of
Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
. Makemake has no known satellites, which makes it unique among the largest KBOs. Makemake was first co-discovered in March 2005 by American astronomers
Michael E. Brown Michael E. Brown (born June 5, 1965) is an American astronomer, who has been professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 2003. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), including ...
,
Chad Trujillo Chadwick A. Trujillo (born November 22, 1973) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and the co-discoverer of Eris, the most massive dwarf planet known in the Solar System. Trujillo works with computer software and has examined ...
, and
David Rabinowitz David Lincoln Rabinowitz (born 1960) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and researcher at Yale University. Career David Rabinowitz has built CCD cameras and software for the detection of near-Earth and Kuiper belt obje ...
at the
Palomar Observatory Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...
. 2005 Eris Eris, formal designation 136199 Eris, is the largest-known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth-largest body known to orbit the Sun directly. It is approximately 2,500 kilometres in diameter and 27% more massive than the dwarf planet Pluto. Eris was discovered in 2005 at
W. M. Keck Observatory The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have aperture primary mirrors, and when comp ...
by American astronomer
Michael E. Brown Michael E. Brown (born June 5, 1965) is an American astronomer, who has been professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 2003. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), including ...
. 2005 Dysnomia Dysnomia, officially (136199) Eris I Dysnomia, is the only known moon of the dwarf planet Eris. In conjunction of finding Eris, American astronomer
Michael E. Brown Michael E. Brown (born June 5, 1965) is an American astronomer, who has been professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 2003. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), including ...
discovered Eris' satellite, Dysnomia, at
W. M. Keck Observatory The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have aperture primary mirrors, and when comp ...
in 2005. 2005 Hydra Hydra is the outer-most natural satellite of
Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...
. It was discovered along with Nix in June 2005 by the Hubble Space Telescope's Pluto Companion Search Team, which is composed of Hal A. Weaver,
Alan Stern Sol Alan Stern (born November 22, 1957) is an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the ''New Horizons'' mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express. Stern has been involved in 24 suborbita ...
, Max J. Mutchler, Andrew J. Steffl, Marc W. Buie, William J. Merline, John R. Spencer, Eliot F. Young, and Leslie A. Young. 2005
Nix Nix or NIX may refer to: Places * Nix, Alabama, an unincorporated community, United States * Nix, Texas, a ghost town in southwestern Lampasas County, Texas, United States * Nix (moon), a moon of Pluto People * Nix (surname), listing people with ...
Nix is a natural satellite of Pluto. It was discovered along with Hydra in June 2005 by the Hubble Space Telescope's Pluto Companion Search Team, composed of Hal A. Weaver,
Alan Stern Sol Alan Stern (born November 22, 1957) is an American engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of the ''New Horizons'' mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express. Stern has been involved in 24 suborbita ...
, Max J. Mutchler, Andrew J. Steffl, Marc W. Buie, William J. Merline, John R. Spencer, Eliot F. Young, and Leslie A. Young. 2005 KV63 at the Valley of the Kings * KV63 is the most recently opened chamber in Egypt's
Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings ( ar, وادي الملوك ; Late Coptic: ), also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings ( ar, وادي أبوا الملوك ), is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th ...
pharaonic necropolis. Initially believed to be a royal tomb, it is now believed to have been an ancient storage chamber for the mummification process. The 2005 discovery of KV63, located about away from King Tut's tomb, is credited to American Egyptologist Dr. Otto Schaden and his team from the University of Memphis. 2007 Human genome and variation mapping * The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens, which is stored on 23 chromosome pairs. Whereas a genome sequence lists the order of every DNA base in a genome, a genome map identifies the landmarks. A genome map is less detailed than a genome sequence and aids in navigating around the genome. While working at the National Institute of Health,
Craig Venter John Craig Venter (born October 14, 1946) is an American biotechnologist and businessman. He is known for leading one of the first draft sequences of the human genome and assembled the first team to transfect a cell with a synthetic chromosome. ...
discovered a technique for rapidly identifying all of the mRNAs present in a cell, and began to use it to identify human brain genes. The short cDNA sequence fragments discovered by this method are called expressed sequence tags. Through his scientific research of bringing the world one step closer to personalized medicine, Craig Venter was listed on Time Magazine's 2007 and 2008 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. 2007
Di-positronium Di-positronium, or dipositronium, is an exotic molecule consisting of two atoms of positronium. It was predicted to exist in 1946 by John Archibald Wheeler, and subsequently studied theoretically, but was not observed until 2007 in an experiment p ...
* The di-positronium is a molecule consisting of two atoms of positronium. It was predicted to exist in 1946 by
John Archibald Wheeler John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in e ...
and subsequently studied theoretically, but was not observed until 2007 in an experiment done by David Cassidy and Allen Mills at the University of California, Riverside.


See also

*
Bone Wars The Bone Wars, also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, was a period of intense and ruthlessly competitive fossil hunting and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope (of the Ac ...
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Discovery of Pluto Following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another planet might exist beyond its orbit. The search began in the mid-19th century and continued at the start of the 20th with Percival Lowell's ...
* George Washington Carver Peanut Discoveries *
History of United States patent law The history of United States patent law started even before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, with some state-specific patent laws. The history spans over more than three centuries. Background The oldest form of a patent was seen in Medieval ti ...
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List of African-American inventors and scientists This list of African Americans inventors and scientists documents many of the African-Americans who have invented a multitude of items or made discoveries in the course of their lives. These have ranged from practical everyday devices to applicat ...
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List of asteroids discovered by Carolyn Shoemaker Carolyn Jean Spellmann Shoemaker (June 24, 1929 – August 13, 2021) was an American astronomer and a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. She discovered 32 comets (then a record for the most by an individual) and more than 500 astero ...
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Lemelson–MIT Prize The Lemelson-MIT Program awards several prizes yearly to inventors in the United States. The largest is the Lemelson–MIT Prize which was endowed in 1994 by Jerome H. Lemelson, funded by the Lemelson Foundation, and is administered through the Sc ...
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NASA spin-off NASA spinoff technologies are commercial products and services which have been developed with the help of NASA, through research and development contracts, such as Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer Prog ...
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National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and ...
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National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also opera ...
* Native American contributions *
Science and technology in the United States Science and technology in the United States has a long history, producing many important figures and developments in the field. The United States of America came into being around the Age of Enlightenment (1685 to 1815), an era in Western ph ...
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Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
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Technological and industrial history of the United States The technological and industrial history of the United States describes the United States' emergence as one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. The availability of land and literate labor, the absence of a landed arist ...
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Timeline of United States inventions The following articles cover the timeline of United States inventions: *Timeline of United States inventions (before 1890), before the turn of the century * Timeline of United States inventions (1890–1945), before World War II *Timeline of Unite ...
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United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...
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United States patent law Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited ...
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Yankee ingenuity Yankee ingenuity is a self-made stereotype of inventiveness, technical solutions to practical problems, "know-how", self-reliance and individual enterprise associated with the Yankees, who originated in New England and developed much of the indust ...


Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Timeline Of United States Discoveries * *List of United States inventions and discoveries United States inventions
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
Discoveries History of the United States by topic