Astronomy
- January 19 - The Hubble Space Telescope Program receives notification of the cancellation of all further HST on-orbit servicing.
- March 15 - Astronomers announce the discovery last year of trans-Neptunian object 90377 Sedna, one of the most distant objects in the Solar System.
- April 19 - Partial solar eclipse
- May 18 - Scientists using the Chandra X-ray Observatory announced their findings that supports the notion that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.
- June 8 - Transit of Venus across the Sun.
- September 13 - Astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announce images that appear to show a planet orbiting a brown dwarf about 230 light years away. The system is believed to be only around 8 million years old.
- October 14 - Partial solar eclipse
- November 20 - Launch of the Swift satellite to investigate gamma-ray bursts (GRB) and perform an X-ray all sky survey.
- 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.
Read more about this topic: 2004 In Science
Famous quotes containing the word astronomy:
“It is noticed, that the consideration of the great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind, and an indifference to death.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Awareness of the stars and their light pervades the Koran, which reflects the brightness of the heavenly bodies in many verses. The blossoming of mathematics and astronomy was a natural consequence of this awareness. Understanding the cosmos and the movements of the stars means understanding the marvels created by Allah. There would be no persecuted Galileo in Islam, because Islam, unlike Christianity, did not force people to believe in a “fixed” heaven.”
—Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan sociologist. Islam and Democracy, ch. 9, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (Trans. 1992)