October 27 - Remains of a previously unknown species of human is discovered in Indonesia. Named Homo floresiensis, the hominid is a dwarfed version that lived 18,000 years ago on the island of Flores. The results were announced in Nature.
March 15 - Astronomers announce the discovery of 90377 Sedna, a Pluto-like planetoid which is the most distant individual object known to orbit the Sun.
December 27 - A flare of radiation from an explosion on the super-magnetic neutron star (Magnetar) SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth - astronomers later calculate that it is the largest explosion observed in the Milky Way galaxy for 400 years. [1]
Biology
July 30 - Marine biologists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute announce in the journal Science the discovery of the genus Osedax, deep sea worms that feed on lipids in decaying whale carcusses.
Geology
September 28 - A long awaited earthquake strikes Parkfield, California, the most closely monitored earthquake zone in the world. The earthquake, which had been expected to have occurred by the late 1980's, strikes as a magnitude 6.0. The network of instruments that had been installed in the region make this the most well-recorded earthquake in history.
January - A team from the JILA laboratory in Boulder, Colorado announce the creation of a fermionic condensate, the first such condensate made from atoms rather than molecules.
March 22 - A team from Australia, Russia and Greece announce a new material, made from a nano-foam of carbon that has the lowest density ever reported for a solid. [2]
May 19 - A team of European scientists produces the first Tonks-Girardeau gas Nature
September 24 - Physicists from the Université Joseph Fourier and the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France announce the discovery of a solution (a-cyclodextrine, water, and 4-methylpyridine) that changes from liquid to solid when heated, and melts again when cooled down. Journal of Chemical Physics
Technology
March 27 - NASA succeeds in a second attempt to fly its X-43A experimental airplane from the Hyper-X project, attaining speeds in excess of Mach 7, the fastest free flying air-breathing hypersonic flight.
April 30 - Scientists from the University of California at Irvine announce the first high-speed transistor made from a carbon nanotube, operating at microwave frequencies.
March 2 - NASA report that the area where their Mars probe Opportunity touched down shows unmistakeable signs of contact with water in the geological past.
September 8 - The Genesis spacecraft returns to Earth with captured solar wind particles, but crash-lands because of a failure to deploy any parachute.
October 4 - SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X Prize after reaching an altitude of over 100 km (62.5 mi) for the second time in less than five days.
