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2004 in science
The year 2004 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.
Anthropology
Astronomy
Biology
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July 30 - Marine biologists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute announce in the journal Science the discovery of the genus Osedax, deep sea worms that feed on lipids in decaying whale carcusses.
Geology
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September 28 - A long awaited earthquake strikes Parkfield, California, the most closely monitored earthquake zone in the world. The earthquake, which had been expected to have occurred by the late 1980's, strikes as a magnitude 6.0. The network of instruments that had been installed in the region make this the most well-recorded earthquake in history.
Physics
Technology
Space exploration
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January 3 - NASA's Spirit, the first of two Mars Exploration Rovers, lands successfully on Mars.
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January 24 - NASA's Opportunity, the second of the Mars Exploration Rovers, lands successfully on Mars.
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March 2 - NASA report that the area where their Mars probe Opportunity touched down shows unmistakeable signs of contact with water in the geological past.
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March 2 - ESA's Rosetta mission launches, aiming to land on Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.
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March 4- NASA's Spirit finds evidence of past contact with water in volcanic rocks on Mars.
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April 1 - The Genesis probe closes and seals its particle collection instrument, and begins to return to Earth.
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June 11 - Cassini-Huygens, the NASA/ESA mission to Saturn, makes a flyby of one of Saturn's small outer moons, Phoebe.
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June 21 - SpaceShipOne, the first civilian space ship is launched in California, reaching an altitude of 100 km (62.5 miles), just passing the edge of space.
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July 1 - The Cassini-Huygens space probe arrives at Saturn and begins its nominal 4 year mission after successfully reaching orbit.
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August 2 - NASA successfully launches the MESSENGER probe on its 5 year trip to Mercury.
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September 8 - The Genesis spacecraft returns to Earth with captured solar wind particles, but crash-lands because of a failure to deploy any parachute.
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October 4 - SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X Prize after reaching an altitude of over 100 km (62.5 mi) for the second time in less than five days.
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November 15 - The Smart 1 space probe reaches orbit around the Moon. It is the first European space mission to do so.
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December 25 - The Cassini probe successfully drops the Huygens probe, sending it onto a trip to land on Saturn's moon Titan
Awards
Appointments
Births
Deaths
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March 15
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July 3 - Andrian Nikolayev (b. 1929), cosmonaut.
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July 28 - Francis Crick (b. 1916), American Nobelaureate in Physiology for discovering the double helix structure for DNA.
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August 12 - John Clark (b. 1951), head of the Roslin Institute and part of the team that cloned Dolly the Sheep.
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August 15 - Sune K. Bergström (b. 1916), Swedish biochemist, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
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August 31 - Fred Whipple (b. 1906), American astronomer who coined the term "dirty snowball" to explain the nature of comets.
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October 5 - Maurice Wilkins (b. 1916), Nobelaureate in Physiology for discovering the double helix structure for DNA using X-ray diffraction.
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October 19 - Lewis Urry (b. 1927), inventor of the long-lasting alkaline battery.
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November 18 - Robert Bacher (b. 1905), nuclear physicist and one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project, Professor and Provost of the California Institute of Technology.
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December 29 - Julius Axelrod, (b. 1912), biochemist, Nobel Prize in Physiology for work with catecholamine neurotransmitters.
Last updated: 08-04-2005 16:59:16
Last updated: 08-17-2005 08:45:36
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