1989 in science

The year 1989 in science and technology involved many significant events, some listed below.

Astronomy

August – Asteroid 4769 Castalia is the first asteroid directly imaged, by radar from Arecibo.
August 25 – The Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune, providing definitive proof of the planet's rings.
September 5 – Pluto–Charon barycentre comes to perihelion.{{cite web|title=Horizon Online Ephemeris System for Pluto Barycenter|publisher=JPL Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System @ Solar System Dynamics Group|url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?find_body=1&body_group=mb&sstr=9|accessdate=January 16, 2011}}
Asteroid 5128 Wakabayashi is discovered by Masahiro Koishikawa.
4292 Aoba is discovered.
4871 Riverside is discovered.
6089 Izumi is discovered.
6190 Rennes is discovered
8084 Dallas is discovered.

Discovery of the cystic fibrosis trans-membrane conductance regulator gene.{{cite journal|url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.2772657|title=Identification of the cystic fibrosis gene: chromosome walking and jumping|journal=Science|date=8 September 1989|doi=10.1126/science.2772657 |accessdate=30 October 2013|last1=Rommens |first1=Johanna M. |last2=Iannuzzi |first2=Michael C. |last3=Kerem |first3=Bat-Sheva |last4=Drumm |first4=Mitchell L. |last5=Melmer |first5=Georg |last6=Dean |first6=Michael |last7=Rozmahel |first7=Richard |last8=Cole |first8=Jeffery L. |last9=Kennedy |first9=Dara |last10=Hidaka |first10=Noriko |last11=Zsiga |first11=Martha |last12=Buchwald |first12=Manuel |last13=Tsui |first13=Lap-Chee |last14=Riordan |first14=John R. |last15=Collins |first15=Francis S. |volume=245 |issue=4922 |pages=1059–1065 |pmid=2772657 |bibcode=1989Sci...245.1059R }}
The New Zealand Department of Conservation begins to implement a Kākāpō Recovery Plan.{{cite book|last=Powlesland|first=R. G.|year=1989|title=Kakapo Recovery Plan 1989–1994|publisher=Department of Conservation|location=Wellington}}

March 12 – Tim Berners-Lee submits a memorandum, titled "Information Management: A Proposal", to the management at CERN for a system that would eventually become the World Wide Web.
June 8 – GNU Bash is released.

{{Cite newsgroup

| title = Bash is in beta release!

| author = Brian Fox (forwarded by Leonard H. Tower Jr.)

| date = June 8, 1989

| newsgroup = gnu.announce

| url = https://groups.google.com/group/gnu.announce/msg/a509f48ffb298c35?hl=en

| accessdate = October 28, 2010

}}

July 26 – A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. for releasing a computer virus, making him the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in the United States.

The global concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere reaches 350 ppm (parts per million) by volume.

January – Supplee's paradox is published.{{cite journal|first=James M.|last=Supplee|year=1989|title=Relativistic buoyancy|journal=American Journal of Physics|volume=57|issue=1|pages=75–77|doi=10.1119/1.15875|issn=0002-9505|bibcode=1989AmJPh..57...75S}}
March 23 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce cold fusion at the University of Utah.

The Oxford Database of Perinatal Trials begins publishing online.{{cite web|title=About the Cochrane Library|url=http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/AboutTheCochraneLibrary.html#ABOUT|publisher=The Cochrane Library|accessdate=January 25, 2011|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110105124021/http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/AboutTheCochraneLibrary.html#ABOUT|archivedate=2011-01-05|url-status=dead}}
The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is first identified by Michael Houghton and his team.

July 17 – The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit "Stealth Bomber" aircraft, developed for the United States Air Force, first flies.{{cite book|last=Lambert|first=Mark|title=Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1990–1991|location=Coulsdon, UK|publisher=Jane's Defence Data|year=1990|isbn=978-0-7106-0908-3}}
Isamu Akasaki produces the first Gallium nitride p-n junction blue/UV light-emitting diode.

February 27 – Konrad Lorenz (born 1903), Austrian zoologist.
March 18 – Sir Harold Jeffreys (born 1891), English mathematician.
April 24 – Horace Hodes (born 1907), American medical researcher.
August 10 – Isabella Forshall (born 1900), English pediatric surgeon.
August 12 – William Shockley (born 1910), American physicist.
August 20 – George Adamson (born 1906), British wildlife conservationist.
August 29 – Sir Peter Scott (born 1909), English wildlife conservationist.
October 11 – M. King Hubbert (born 1903), American geophysicist.
October 28 – Louise Hay (born 1935), French-born American mathematician; breast cancer.
December 14 – Andrei Sakharov (born 1921), Soviet Russian nuclear physicist and political dissident.