The year2004 inscience andtechnology involved some significant events.dranmo

• October 27 – Remains of a previously unknown species of human is discovered inIndonesia. NamedHomo floresiensis, thehominin is adwarfed version that lived 18,000 years ago on the island ofFlores.^[1]

• March 15 – Astronomers announce the discovery last year oftrans-Neptunian object90377 Sedna, one of the most distant objects in theSolar System.^[2]
• April 19 –Partial solar eclipse.
• May 18 – Scientists using theChandra X-ray Observatory announced their findings that supports the notion that the expansion of theUniverse isaccelerating.^[3]
• July 1 (01:12–02:48UTC) –Saturnorbit insertion ofCassini–Huygens.
• June 8 –Transit of Venus across the Sun.
• September 13 – Astronomers from theEuropean Southern Observatory (ESO) announce images that appear to show aplanet orbiting abrown dwarf about 230light-years away. The system is believed to be only around 8 million years old.
• October 14 –Partial solar eclipse
• November 20 – Launch of theSwift satellite to investigategamma-ray bursts (GRB) and perform anX-ray all sky survey.
• December 27 – A flare of radiation from an explosion on the super-magneticneutron star (Magnetar)SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth – astronomers later calculate that it is the largest explosion observed in theMilky Way galaxy for 400 years.^[4]

• April 22 –Trees have a theoretical maximum height of 130 m (426 ft) before gravity restricts their growth, according to a study published inNature.^[5]
• July 30 – Marine biologists from theMonterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute announce in thejournalScience the discovery of the genusOsedax, deep sea worms that feed onlipids in decayingwhale carcasses.

• February 4 –Facebook launches:Mark Zuckerberg launches "TheFacebook" as a social networking website forHarvard University students.^[6]
• April 1 –Gmail launches.
• November 9 –Firefox launches.

• September 28 – A long-awaited earthquake strikesParkfield, California, the most closely monitored earthquake zone in the world. The earthquake, which had been expected to have occurred by the late 1980s, strikes at a magnitude 6.0. The network of instruments that had been installed in the region make this the most well-recorded earthquake in history.
• December 26 –Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

• Michael Aschbacher and Stephen D. Smith publish their work onquasithin groups, filling the last (known) gap in theclassification of finite simple groups.

• January – A 428 million-year-old fossilPneumodesmus found inScotland is identified as the world's oldest known creature to have lived on land.^[7]
• Summer – A team led byNeil Shubin discover fossils of thesarcopterygianTiktaalik onEllesmere Island inNunavut,Canada, significant in the evolution oftetrapods.^[8]

• January 14 – Physicists fromPennsylvania State University produce the first solidBose–Einstein condensate.^[9]
• January – A team from theJILA laboratory inBoulder, Colorado announce the creation of afermionic condensate, the first such condensate made from atoms rather than molecules.
• February 3 – Russian and American physicists produce results that indicate the discovery of elements113 and115.^[10]
• March 22 – A team from Australia, Russia and Greece announce a new material, made from a nano-foam ofcarbon that has the lowest density ever reported for a solid.^[11]
• April 20 –NASA launchesGravity Probe B in an effort to testEinstein'sgeneral theory of relativity.
• May 19 – A team of European scientists produces the firstTonks–Girardeau gas.^[12]
• September 24 – Physicists from theUniversité Joseph Fourier and theInstitut Laue–Langevin inGrenoble, France announce the discovery of a solution (a-cyclodextrine, water, and 4-methylpyridine) that changes from liquid to solid when heated, and melts again when cooled down.^[13]
• October 22 –Andre Geim andKonstantin Novoselov publish their rediscovery, isolation and characterization ofgraphene at theUniversity of Manchester in England.^[14][15]

• March 27 –NASA succeeds in a second attempt to fly itsX-43A experimental airplane from theHyper-X project, attaining speeds in excess ofMach 7, the fastest free flying air-breathinghypersonic flight.
• April 30 – Scientists from theUniversity of California at Irvine announce the first high-speedtransistor made from acarbon nanotube, operating atmicrowave frequencies.

• January 2 –NASA'sStardustspace probe flies bycomet81P/Wild and collects particle samples from itscoma.
• January 4 – NASA'sMars Exploration Rover MissionSpirit (MER-A), the first of twoMars rovers, lands successfully onMars in the craterGusev (Columbia Memorial Station) at 04:35SCET.
• January 25 – NASA'sMars Exploration Rover MissionOpportunity (MER-B), the secondMars rover, lands successfully onMars in theMeridiani Planum at 05:05SCET.
• March 2
  • NASA report that the area where their Mars roverOpportunity touched down shows unmistakable signs of contact with water in the geological past.
  • TheEuropean Space Agency'sRosetta mission launches, aiming to land onComet Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014.
• March 4 –NASA'sSpirit finds evidence of past contact with water in volcanic rocks on Mars.
• April 1 – TheGenesis probe closes and seals its particle collection instrument, and begins to return to Earth.
• June 11 –Cassini–Huygens, theNASA/ESA mission toSaturn, makes a flyby of one of Saturn's small outer moons,Phoebe.
• June 21 –SpaceShipOne, the first civilian space ship is launched inCalifornia, reaching an altitude of 100 km (62 mi), just passing theedge of space.
• July 1 – TheCassini-Huygens space probe arrives at Saturn and begins its nominal 4-year mission after successfully reaching orbit.
• August 2 –NASA successfully launches theMESSENGER probe on its 5-year trip toMercury.
• September 8 – TheGenesis spacecraft returns to Earth with capturedsolar wind particles, but crash-lands because of a failure to deploy any parachute.
• October 4 –SpaceShipOne wins theAnsari X Prize after reaching an altitude of over 100 km (62 mi) for the second time in less than five days.
• November 15 – TheSMART-1 space probe reaches orbit around theMoon. It is the first European space mission to do so.
• December 25 – TheCassini probe successfully drops the Huygens probe, sending it onto a trip to land onSaturn's moonTitan.

• Nobel Prize
  • Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine:Linda B. Buck andRichard Axel
  • Nobel Prize in Physics:David J. Gross,H. David Politzer andFrank Wilczek
  • Nobel Prize in Chemistry:Aaron Ciechanover,Avram Hershko andIrwin Rose
• Abel Prize in Mathematics:Michael F. Atiyah andIsadore M. Singer
• Millennium Technology Prize (inaugural year):World Wide Web inventorTim Berners-Lee
• Descartes Prize for outstanding cross-border research
  • Mitochondrial Biogenesis, Ageing and Disease project (co-ordinatorHoward Trevor Jacobs)
  • Long Distance Photonic Quantum Communication project (co-ordinatorAnders Karlsson)

• February 12 –Arden Bement, acting director of theU.S.A.'sNational Science Foundation.
• August 26 – NeurobiologistSusan Hockfield is appointed as President ofMIT.
• November 19 – Particle physicistPiermaria Oddone is appointed to succeedMichael Witherell as director ofFermilab (from July 1, 2005).

• January 6 –Thomas Stockham (b.1933),American electrical engineer and inventor.
• January 12 –Olga Ladyzhenskaya (b.1922),Soviet mathematician.
• February 6 –Humphry Osmond (b.1917), English-bornpsychiatrist.
• February 21 –John D. Hoffman (b.1922), Americannuclear chemist.
• March 15
  • Bill Pickering (b.1910), New Zealand-born head ofNASA'sJet Propulsion Laboratory.
  • Sir John Pople (b.1925), BritishNobel Prize-winning chemist.
• April 6 –Biswa Ranjan Nag (b.1932), Indian physicist.
• April 19 –John Maynard Smith (b.1920), Englishevolutionary biologist andgeneticist.
• May 27 –Mikhail Postnikov (b.1927), Soviet mathematician, known for his work inalgebraic anddifferential topology.
• June 8 –David Mervyn Blow (b.1931), Englishbiophysicist.
• July 3 –Andriyan Nikolayev (b.1929),cosmonaut.
• July 28 –Francis Crick (b.1916), AmericanNobel laureate in Physiology for discovering thedouble helix structure forDNA.
• August 12 –John Clark (b.1951), English-born molecular biologist, head of theRoslin Institute and part of the team that clonedDolly the Sheep.
• August 15 –Sune K. Bergström (b.1916), Swedishbiochemist, winner of the 1982Nobel Prize for Medicine.
• August 31 –Fred Whipple (b.1906), Americanastronomer who coined the term "dirty snowball" to explain the nature ofcomets.
• October 5 –Maurice Wilkins (b.1916), New Zealand-born BritishNobel laureate in Physiology for discovering thedouble helix structure forDNA usingX-ray diffraction.
• October 19 –Lewis Urry (b.1927), Canadian inventor of the long-lastingalkaline battery.
• October 21 –Magdalena K. P. Smith Meyer (b. 1931), South Africanacarologist.
• November 18 –Robert Bacher (b.1905), American nuclear physicist and one of the leaders of theManhattan Project, Professor and Provost of theCalifornia Institute of Technology.
• November 20 –Ancel Keys (b.1904), American nutritionist.
• December 26 –Frank Pantridge (b.1916), Northern Irishcardiologist.
• December 29 –Julius Axelrod, (b.1912), Americanbiochemist,Nobel Prize in Physiology for work withcatecholamineneurotransmitters.

• "The year in science and technology in Israel". IsraCast. Archived fromthe original on 2006-03-16. Retrieved2006-01-12.

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