1997 in science - Definition

The year 1997 in science and technology had many significant events, including those listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• February 13 - Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
• July 4 - Mars Pathfinder lands on the surface of Mars
• August 25 - Launch of Explorer 71 of the Explorer program of spacecraft
• October 30 - First successful test flight of the ESA's Ariane 5 expendable launch system

Aviation

• September 7 - First test flight of the F/A-22 Raptor

Biology

• February 22 - In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned and was born in July 1996
• March 4 - United States President Bill Clinton bars federal funding for any research on human cloning
• July 10 - In London, scientists report their DNA analysis findings from a Neandertal skeleton which support the out of Africa theory of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago
• November 19 - In Carlisle, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive

Computer science

• May 11 - IBM's Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov, the first time a computer beat a chess grand master

Geology

• May 10 - An earthquake near Ardekul in northeastern Iran kills at least 2,400

Technology

• October 15 - The first supersonic land speed record is set by the ThrustSSC team from the United Kingdom

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, William D. Phillips
  • Chemistry - Paul D. Boyer, John E. Walker, Jens Christian Skou
  • Medicine - Stanley B. Prusiner
• Turing Award - Douglas Engelbart
• Wollaston Medal for Geology - Douglas James Shearman

Births

Deaths

• January 17 - Clyde Tombaugh (b. 1906), astronomer, discoveror of Pluto
• April 7 - Georgi Shonin (b. 1935), cosmonaut.
• May 2 - John Carew Eccles (b. 1903), psychologist
• August 24 - Louis Essen (b. 1908), physicist, co-developer of the first practical atomic clock
• September 4 - Hans Eysenck (b. 1916), psychologist.
• Armin Kutzsche (b. 1914), medical researcher.