1997 in science

The year 1997 CE in science and technology had many significant events, including those listed below.

Table of contents

1 Astronomy and space exploration
2 Aviation
3 Biology
4 Computer science
5 Geology
6 Technology
7 Awards
8 Deaths

Astronomy and space exploration

February 13 - Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
July 4 - Mars Pathfinder lands on the surface of Mars
August 25 - Launch of Explorer 71 of the Explorer program of spacecraft
October 30 - First successful test flight of the ESA's Ariane 5 expendable launch system

February 22 - In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned and was born in July 1996
March 4 - United States President Bill Clinton bars federal funding for any research on human cloning
July 10 - In London, scientists report their DNA analysis findings from a Neanderthal skeleton which support the out of Africa theory of human evolution placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago
November 19 - In Carlisle, Iowa, Bobbi McCaughey gives birth to septuplets in the second known case where all seven babies were born alive

May 11 - IBM's Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov, the first time a computer beat a chess grand master

October 15 - The first supersonic land speed record is set by the ThrustSSC team from the United Kingdom