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 Stephenson Yang publish radial-velocity observations suggesting that an extrasolar planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei, although its existence is not confirmed until 2003.
• 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.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is established.

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.
• The first version of the Photoshop graphics software, devised by Thomas Knoll, ships with Barneyscan image scanners.

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 – Isidor Isaac Rabi (born 1898), Polish 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 (born 1918), American physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics.
• May 8 – Robert A. Heinlein (born 1907), American "hard" science fiction author.
• May 25 – Ernst Ruska (born 1906), German winner of Nobel Prize in Physics for work in electron optics.
• September 1 – Luis Walter Alvarez (born 1911), American experimental physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for bubble chamber research into particle physics.
• October 9 – Felix Wankel (born 1902), German mechanical engineer.
• December 21 – Nikolaas Tinbergen (born 1907), Dutch-born ethologist, ornithologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.