1839 in science

Astronomy

• January – The first parallax measurement of the distance to Alpha Centauri is published by Thomas Henderson.
• January 2 – The first photograph of the Moon is taken by Louis Daguerre.

  Biology

• January 29 – English naturalist Charles Darwin marries his cousin Emma Wedgwood.
• Theodor Schwann proposes that all living matter is made up of cells.
• The beetle subfamily Oxyporinae is discovered by Wilhelm Ferdinand Erichson.

  Chemistry

• Carl Mosander discovers lanthanum.

  Exploration

• May 1 – Start of Eyre's expeditions to the interior of South Australia.
• September 19 – James Clark Ross sets off on the first scientific expedition to survey Antarctica.
• Publication of Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle under the Command of Captain FitzRoy, R.N., from 1832 to 1839.

  Geology

• Roderick Murchison publishes The Silurian System.
• December 24 – An enormous landslide occurs at Axmouth, Devon, England. A report by geologists William Daniel Conybeare and William Buckland is one of the earliest scientific descriptions of such an event.

  Technology

• January 9 – The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
• January 25 – H. Fox Talbot shows his "photogenic drawings" at the Royal Institution.
• February 24 – William Otis receives a patent for the steam shovel.
• April 9 – The world's first commercial electric telegraph line comes into operation alongside the Great Western Railway in England.
• May 29 – Mungo Ponton presents his discovery of the light-sensitive quality of sodium dichromate as a method of permanent photography.
• Michael Faraday publishes Experimental Researches in Electricity clarifying the true nature of electricity.
• Invention of the Grove fuel cell by William Grove.
• Development of vulcanized rubber by Charles Goodyear.
• Development of Babbitt metal by Isaac Babbitt.
• Invention of the Polonceau truss for roof construction by Camille Polonceau.
• Claimed invention of the rear-wheel driven bicycle by Kirkpatrick Macmillan in Scotland.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: Robert Brown
• Wollaston Medal: Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg

  Births

• January 26 - Rachel Lloyd , American chemist.
• January 27 – Marie-Adolphe Carnot, French chemist and mining engineer.
• February 11
• * Josiah Willard Gibbs, American theoretical physicist and chemist.
• * Almon Strowger, American telecommunications engineer.
• February 15 – Hieronymus Georg Zeuthen, Danish mathematician.
• March 8 – Josephine Cochrane, American inventor of the first commercially successful dishwasher.
• March 16 – Sully Prudhomme, French engineer and poet, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• April 4 – James Blyth, Scottish electrical engineer.
• April 12 – Nikolai Przhevalsky, Russian-born Polish explorer.
• May 8 – George Miller Beard, American neurologist.
• July 17 – Ephraim Shay, American steam locomotive engineer.
• September 10 – Charles Sanders Peirce, American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist.

  Deaths

• January 22 – Christian Ramsay, Lady Dalhousie, Scottish botanist.
• April 8 – Pierre Prévost, Swiss physicist.
• June 27 – Allan Cunningham, English botanist and explorer.
• August 28 – William Smith, English geologist.
• August 10 – Sir John St Aubyn, 5th Baronet, English fossil collector.
• September 29 – Friedrich Mohs, German mineralogist.
• October 24 – Sir William Charles Ellis, English psychiatric physician.
• November 15 – William Murdoch, Scottish-born inventor and technician.
• December 24 – Davies Gilbert, English promoter of science.