1994 in science

The year 1994 in science and technology consisted of many events, including those below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• July 16-July 22 – The fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact the planet Jupiter
• October 12 – NASA loses contact with the Magellan spacecraft after a successful mission. The probe crashed into Venus shortly after.

Archaeology

• March 31 – The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull (see Human evolution).

Physics

• April 23 – Physicists at Fermilab observe the top quark.

Technology

• May 6 – The Channel Tunnel, which took 15,000 workers over seven years to complete, opens between England and France. Travelers can now travel between the two countries in 35 minutes.

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Bertram N. Brockhouse, Clifford G. Shull
  • Chemistry – George A. Olah
  • Medicine – Alfred G. Gilman, Martin Rodbell
• Turing Award – Edward Feigenbaum, Raj Reddy
• Wollaston Medal for Geology – William Jason Morgan

Births

Deaths

• January 25 – Stephen Cole Kleene (b. 1909), mathematician.
• July 29 – Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (b. 1910), chemist.
• August 19 – Linus Pauling (b. 1901), American chemist.