Events, Discoveries and Inventions
- 9 January – Apple Inc.'s first iPhone smartphone is announced by Steve Jobs at Macworld in San Francisco.
- 12 January – Comet McNaught reaches perihelion and becomes visible from Earth during daylight.
- 14 January – Scientists at the Roslin Institute announce they have genetically engineered chickens to lay eggs containing cancer-fighting proteins.
- 28 February – The New Horizons space probe makes a gravitational slingshot around Jupiter to change its trajectory towards Pluto.
- 3—4 March – A total lunar eclipse occurs, visible in some parts of the Americas and Asia, and in all of Europe and Africa.
- 19 March – A partial solar eclipse occurs, visible in Asia.
- 10 April – Spectroscopic analysis of HD 209458 b, an extrasolar planet, provides the first evidence of atmospheric water vapor beyond the Solar System.
- 24 April – The potentially habitable exoplanet Gliese 581 c is discovered in the constellation Libra.
- 27 April – US researchers simulate half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer.
- 5 June – NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second flyby of Venus en route to Mercury.
- 28 August – A total lunar eclipse occurs, visible in some parts of the Americas and Asia, and all of Australasia and the Pacific Ocean.
- 11 September – A partial solar eclipse occurs, visible in southern areas of South America.
- 27 September – NASA's Dawn spacecraft is launched, beginning its journey to Vesta and Ceres.
- 24 October – Comet 17P/Holmes suddenly brightens from 17 to 2.8 magnitude.
Read more about this topic: 2007 In Science
Famous quotes containing the words discoveries and/or inventions:
“Ah, I fancy it is just the same with most of what you call your “emancipation.” You have read yourself into a number of new ideas and opinions. You have got a sort of smattering of recent discoveries in various fields—discoveries that seem to overthrow certain principles which have hitherto been held impregnable and unassailable. But all this has only been a matter of intellect, Miss West—superficial acquisition. It has not passed into your blood.”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)
“I’m afraid for all those who’ll have the bread snatched from their mouths by these machines.... What business has science and capitalism got, bringing all these new inventions into the works, before society has produced a generation educated up to using them!”
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906)