The year 1989 in science and technology involved many significant events, some listed below.

Astronomy

* August –

Asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

4769 Castalia 4769 Castalia (; '' prov. designation:'' ) is a near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo group, approximately in diameter and was the first asteroid to be modeled by radar imaging. It was discovered on 9 August 1989, ...

is the first asteroid directly imaged, by radar from

Arecibo Arecibo (; ) is a Arecibo barrio-pueblo, city and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Utuado, Puerto Rico, Utuado and Ciales, Puerto Rico, Ciale ...

. * August 25 – The ''

Voyager 2 ''Voyager 2'' is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, as a part of the Voyager program. It was launched on a trajectory towards the gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and enabled further encounters with the ice giants (Uranus and ...

'' spacecraft makes its closest approach to

Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...

, providing definitive proof of the planet's rings. * September 5 –

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 Su ...

–

Charon In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon ( ; ) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of the Greek underworld. He carries the souls of those who have been given funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, which separate the worlds of the living and ...

barycentre In astronomy, the barycenter (or barycentre; ) is the center of mass of two or more bodies that orbit one another and is the point about which the bodies orbit. A barycenter is a dynamical point, not a physical object. It is an important con ...

comes to

perihelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides perta ...

. * Asteroid 5128 Wakabayashi is discovered by

Masahiro Koishikawa was a Japan, Japanese astronomer. He studied both major and minor planets, and discovered multiple asteroids. Koishikawa was a staff member of the Sendai Astronomical Observatory frin 1972. His research was based out of the Sendai's Ayashi (L ...

. *

4292 Aoba 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is a square number, the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. Evolution of the Hi ...

is discovered. * 4871 Riverside is discovered. * 6089 Izumi is discovered. * 6190 Rennes is discovered *

8084 Dallas 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. Etymology English ''eight'', from Old English '', æhta'', Proto-Germanic ''*ahto'' is a direct continuation of Proto-Indo-European '' *oḱtṓ(w)-'', and as such cognate wi ...

is discovered.

Biology

* Discovery of the

cystic fibrosis Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder inherited in an autosomal recessive manner that impairs the normal clearance of Sputum, mucus from the lungs, which facilitates the colonization and infection of the lungs by bacteria, notably ''Staphy ...

trans-membrane conductance regulator gene. * The New Zealand

Department of Conservation Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

begins to implement a

Kākāpō The kākāpō (; : ; ''Strigops habroptilus''), sometimes known as the owl parrot or owl-faced parrot, is a species of large, nocturnal, ground-dwelling parrot of the superfamily Strigopoidea. It is endemic to New Zealand. Kākāpō can be u ...

Recovery Plan.

Computer science

* March 12 –

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow a ...

submits a memorandum, titled "Information Management: A Proposal", to the management at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

for a system that would eventually become the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

. * June 8 –

GNU Bash In computing, Bash (short for "''Bourne Again SHell''") is an interactive command interpreter and command programming language developed for UNIX-like operating systems. Created in 1989 by Brian Fox for the GNU Project, it is supported by the Fre ...

is released. * July 26 – A federal

grand jury A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...

indicts

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

student Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. for releasing a

computer virus A computer virus is a type of malware that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and Code injection, inserting its own Computer language, code into those programs. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas ...

, making him the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA) is a United States cybersecurity bill that was enacted in 1986 as an amendment to existing computer fraud law (), which had been included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. Prior ...

in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Environment

* The global concentration of

carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere In Earth's atmosphere, carbon dioxide is a trace gas that plays an integral part in the greenhouse effect, carbon cycle, photosynthesis and oceanic carbon cycle. It is one of three main greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of Earth. The conce ...

reaches 350 ppm (parts per million) by volume.

Physics

* January –

Supplee's paradox In relativistic physics, Supplee's paradox (also called the submarine paradox) is a physical paradox that arises when considering the buoyant force exerted on a relativistic bullet (or in a submarine) immersed in a fluid subject to an ambient gr ...

is published. * March 23 –

Stanley Pons Bobby Stanley Pons (born August 23, 1943) is an American electrochemist known for his work with Martin Fleischmann on cold fusion in the 1980s and 1990s. Early life Pons was born in Valdese, North Carolina. He attended Valdese High School, then ...

and

Martin Fleischmann Martin Fleischmann FRS (29 March 1927 – 3 August 2012) was a British chemist who worked in electrochemistry. By Associated Press. The premature announcement of his cold fusion research with Stanley Pons, regarding excess heat in hea ...

announce

cold fusion Cold fusion is a hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that would occur at, or near, room temperature. It would contrast starkly with the nuclear fusion, "hot" fusion that is known to take place naturally within Main sequence, stars and artific ...

at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

Physiology and medicine

* ''The Oxford Database of Perinatal Trials'' begins publishing online. * The

hepatitis C virus The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a small (55–65 nm in size), enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus of the family ''Flaviviridae''. The hepatitis C virus is the cause of hepatitis C and some cancers such as liver cancer ( hepatoc ...

(HCV) is first identified by

Michael Houghton Sir Michael Houghton (born 1949) is a British scientist and Nobel Prize laureate. Along with Qui-Lim Choo, George Kuo and Daniel W. Bradley, he co-discovered Hepatitis C in 1989. He also co-discovered the Hepatitis D genome in 1986. The discove ...

and his team.

Technology

* July 17 – The

Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit The Northrop B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American Heavy bomber, heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth aircraft, stealth technology designed to penetrator (aircraft), penetrate dense anti-aircraft war ...

Stealth Stealth may refer to: Military *Stealth technology, technology used to conceal ships, aircraft, and missiles **Stealth aircraft, aircraft which use stealth technology ** Stealth ground vehicle, ground vehicles which use stealth technology ** Ste ...

Bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch aerial torpedo, torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strateg ...

" aircraft, developed for the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

, first flies. *

Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride (GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness G ...

produces the first

Gallium nitride Gallium nitride () is a binary III/ V direct bandgap semiconductor commonly used in blue light-emitting diodes since the 1990s. The compound is a very hard material that has a Wurtzite crystal structure. Its wide band gap of 3.4 eV af ...

p-n junction blue/UV

light-emitting diode A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corre ...

Awards

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

s **

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, 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 whi ...

– Norman F. Ramsey,

Hans G. Dehmelt Hans Georg Dehmelt (; 9 September 1922 – 7 March 2017) was a German and American physicist, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989, for co-developing the ion trap technique (Penning trap) with Wolfgang Paul, for which they shared one-h ...

Wolfgang Paul Wolfgang Paul (; 10 August 1913 – 7 December 1993) was a German physicist, who co-developed the non-magnetic quadrupole mass filter which laid the foundation for what is now called an ion trap. He shared one-half of the Nobel Prize in Ph ...

Chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

–

Sidney Altman Sidney Altman (May 7, 1939 – April 5, 2022) was a Canadian-American molecular biologist, who was the Sterling Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and Chemistry at Yale University. In 1989, he shared the Nobel Prize in ...

, Thomas R. Cech **

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

– J. Michael Bishop,

Harold E. Varmus Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. He was ...

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the fi ...

– William (Velvel) Kahan

Births

* May 9 –

Katie Bouman Katherine Louise Bouman (; born 1989) is an American engineer and computer scientist working in the field of computational imaging. She led the development of an algorithm for imaging black holes, known as Continuous High-resolution Image Rec ...

, American computer imaging scientist

Deaths

* February 27 –

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (Austrian ; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoology, zoologist, ethology, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von ...

(born

1903 Events January * January 1 – Edward VII is proclaimed Emperor of India. * January 10 – The Aceh Sultanate was fully annexed by the Dutch forces, deposing the last sultan, marking the end of the Aceh War that have lasted for al ...

), Austrian

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

. * March 18 – Sir

Harold Jeffreys Sir Harold Jeffreys, FRS (22 April 1891 – 18 March 1989) was a British geophysicist who made significant contributions to mathematics and statistics. His book, ''Theory of Probability'', which was first published in 1939, played an importan ...

(born

1891 Events January * January 1 ** A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence. **Germany takes formal possession of its new African territories. * January 4 – The Earl of Zetland issues a ...

), English

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. * April 24 – Horace Hodes (born

1907 Events January * January 14 – 1907 Kingston earthquake: A 6.5 Moment magnitude scale, Mw earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, kills between 800 and 1,000. February * February 9 – The "Mud March (suffragists), Mud March", the ...

), American medical researcher. * August 10 –

Isabella Forshall Isabella Forshall FRCSE (2 October 1900 – 10 August 1989) was an English paediatric surgeon who played a leading role in the development of the speciality of paediatric surgery in the United Kingdom. She took a particular interest in neonat ...

(born

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15 ...

), English

pediatric surgeon Pediatric surgery is a medical specialty, subspecialty of surgery involving the surgery of fetuses, infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. History Pediatric surgery arose in the middle of the 1879 century as the surgical care of birt ...

. * August 12 –

William Shockley William Bradford Shockley ( ; February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American solid-state physicist, electrical engineer, and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brat ...

(born

1910 Events January * January 6 – Abé people in the French West Africa colony of Côte d'Ivoire rise against the colonial administration; the rebellion is brutally suppressed by the military. * January 8 – By the Treaty of Punakha, t ...

), American

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. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. * August 20 –

George Adamson George Alexander Graham Adamson MBE (3 February 1906 – 20 August 1989), also known as the ''Baba ya Simba'' ("Father of Lions" in Swahili), was a British wildlife conservationist and author based in Kenya. His wife Joy Adamson related in h ...

(born

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

), British

wildlife conservation Wildlife conservation refers to the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to maintain healthy wildlife species or populations and to restore, protect or enhance natural ecosystems. Major threats to wildlife include habita ...

ist. * August 29 – Sir

Peter Scott Sir Peter Markham Scott (14 September 1909 – 29 August 1989) was a British ornithologist, conservation movement, conservationist, painter, naval officer, broadcaster and Sportsperson, sportsman. The only child of Antarctic explorer Robert Fal ...

(born

1909 Events January–February * January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escapes death by fleeing across ice floes. * January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. * Janu ...

), English wildlife conservationist. * October 11 –

M. King Hubbert Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) was an American geologist and geophysicist. He worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. He made several important contributions to geology, geophysics, and petroleum geolog ...

(born

), American

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct investigations acros ...

. * October 28 –

Louise Hay Louise Lynn Hay (October 8, 1926 – August 30, 2017) was an American motivational author, professional speaker and AIDS advocate. She authored several New Thought self-help books, including the 1984 book '' You Can Heal Your Life'', and founde ...

(born

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...

), French-born American mathematician; breast cancer. * December 14 –

Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Physics, physicist and a List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world. Alt ...

(born

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil. ** The Spanish lin ...

), Soviet Russian

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

and political dissident.

References

{{reflist 20th century in science 1980s in science