1988 in science

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The year 1988 in science and technology involved many significant events, some listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• September 29 – NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster.
• November 15 – In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle Buran is launched by an Energia rocket on her maiden orbital spaceflight (this was the first and last space flight for the shuttle).
• Canadian astronomers Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker and S. Yang publish radial-velocity observations suggesting that an extrasolar planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei, although its existence is not confirmed until 2002.
• Asteroid 3994 Ayashi is discovered by Masahiro Koishikawa.
• 4407 Taihaku is discovered.
• 4539 Miyagino is discovered.

Climatology

• NASA climate scientist James Hansen uses the term global warming in testimony to the United States Congress bringing it to public attention.

Computer science

• November 2 – The Morris worm is unleashed on the Internet.
• November 17 – The Netherlands becomes the second country to get connected to the Internet.^{[citation needed]}

Medicine

• May 1 – The initial case definition of Chronic fatigue syndrome (the "Holmes definition") is published, displacing the name Chronic Epstein-Barr virus syndrome.
• Patricia Bath patents the Laserphaco Probe, a device "for ablating and removing cataract lenses".

Publications

• Stephen Hawking publishes A Brief History of Time.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, Jack Steinberger
  • Chemistry – Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, Hartmut Michel
  • Medicine – Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion, George H. Hitchings
• Turing Award – Ivan Sutherland

Deaths

• January 11 – I.I. Rabi (b. 1898), American physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for invention of the atomic beam magnetic resonance method of measuring magnetic properties of atoms and molecules.
• February 15 – Richard Feynman (b. 1918), American physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics.
• May 8 – Robert A. Heinlein (b. 1907), "hard" science fiction author
• May 25 – Ernst Ruska (b. 1906), Nobel Prize Physicist
• December 21 – Nikolaas Tinbergen (b. 1907), Dutch-born ethologist, ornithologist and Nobel Prize laureate.