1999 in science

Aeronautics

• February 27 – While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in their balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.
• March 3-20 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones successfully complete a non-stop circumnavigation of the world in a hot air balloon.

  Astronomy and space exploration

• January 31 – A total penumbral lunar eclipse
• February 7 – Stardust is launched on a mission to collect samples of a comet coma, and return them to Earth.
• February 16 – Annular solar eclipse, visible from Australia.
• July 20 – Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.
• July 28 – Partial lunar eclipse, visible from Australia, eastern Asia, and western North America.
• July 31 – NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
• August 11 – Total solar eclipse, visible from Europe, across the Middle East, and ending in India.
• December 16 – The Beethoven Burst is one of the most powerful detected Gamma-ray bursts.
• NASA loses two Mars probes, the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander.
• The Subaru 8.3 m and Gemini North 8.1 m reflecting telescopes open at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii.
• The Cetus Dwarf galaxy is discovered.

  Biology

• November 1 – Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds comes into force.
• Late – Pest-exclusion fence around Zealandia in Wellington, New Zealand, completed.
• The bacterium Thiomargarita namibiensis is discovered off the coast of Namibia. At 0.3mm in diameter, it is largest bacteria discovered.

  Chemistry

• Elements 118 and 116 are claimed to be made for the first time. Later retracted when results could not be replicated.

  Computer science

• March 26 – The Melissa worm attacks the Internet.
• June – defines HTTP/1.1, the version of Hypertext Transfer Protocol in common use.
• September 21 – David Bowie's Hours becomes the first complete music album by a major artist available to download over the Internet in advance of the physical release.
• First working 3-qubit NMR computer demonstrated at IBM's Almaden Research Center. First execution of Grover's algorithm.
• Probable date – First emojis introduced, in Japan.

  Geology

• January 25 – A 6.0 Richter scale hits western Colombia, killing at least 1,000.
• August 17 – The 7.6 Ä°zmit earthquake shakes northwestern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX, leaving 17,118–17,127 dead and 43,953–50,000 injured.

  History of science and technology

• Boris Chertok publishes «Ракеты и люди», a history of the Soviet rocket program.

  Mathematics

• Eric M. Rains and Neil Sloane extend tree counting.

  Paleontology

• First fossil of Kenyanthropus Pliocene hominin discovered in Lake Turkana, Kenya.

  Physics

• CERN: Bulgaria becomes a member of CERN.

  Physiology and medicine

• Huda Zoghbi demonstrates that Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene MECP2.

  Telecommunications

• The first BlackBerry is released, using the same hardware as the Inter@ctive pager 950, and running on the Mobitex network.

  Awards

• Nobel Prizes
• * Physics – Gerardus 't Hooft, Martinus J.G. Veltman
• * Chemistry – Ahmed H. Zewail
• * Medicine – Günter Blobel
• Turing Award: Fred Brooks
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: John Frederick Dewey

  Deaths

• February 21 – Gertrude B. Elion, American pharmacologist, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine.
• February 25 – Glenn T. Seaborg, American physical chemist, Nobel laureate in Chemistry.
• March 17 – Herbert E. Grier, American electrical engineer.
• April 28 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American physicist, Nobel laureate in Physicist.
• May 8 – Edward Abraham, English biochemist.
• May 26 – Waldo Semon, American inventor.
• July 8 – Pete Conrad, American astronaut.
• November 11 – Vivian Fuchs, English geologist and explorer.
• November 25 – Pierre Bézier, French engineer.