1976 in science

The year 1976 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• June 18 – Gravity Probe A, a satellite-based experiment to test Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, is launched.
• July 20 – Viking program: The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.
• July 31 – NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1
• August 7 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars.
• September 3 – Viking program: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars takes the first close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.
• September 17 – Space Shuttle Enterprise rolled out

Aviation

• January 21 – The Concorde begins comercial flights.
• December – The first flight of the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Computer science

• April 1 – Apple Computer Company is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
• November 26 – Little known company Microsoft is officially registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.

• Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, invented by Seymour Cray

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Burton Richter, Samuel C. C. Ting
  • Chemistry – William N. Lipscomb
  • Medicine – Baruch S. Blumberg, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek
• Turing Award – Michael O. Rabin, Dana Scott

Births

Deaths

• February 1 – Werner Heisenberg (b. 1901), physicist.
• April 21 – Carl Benjamin Boyer (b. 1906), historian of mathematics.
• May 31 – Jacques Monod (b. 1910), biochemist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965.
• October 5 – Lars Onsager (d. 1903), chemist.