1988 in science

Astronomy and space exploration

• September 29 – NASA resumes space shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster.
• November 15 – In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle Buran is launched by an Energia rocket on her maiden orbital spaceflight.
• Canadian astronomers Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker and Stephenson Yang publish radial-velocity observations suggesting that an extrasolar planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei, although its existence is not confirmed until 2003.
• Asteroid 3994 Ayashi is discovered by Masahiro Koishikawa.
• 4407 Taihaku is discovered.
• 4539 Miyagino is discovered.

  Climatology

• NASA climate scientist James Hansen uses the term global warming in testimony to the United States Congress bringing it to public attention.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is established.

  Computer science

• November 2 – The Morris worm is unleashed on the Internet.
• November 17 – The Netherlands becomes the second country to get connected to the Internet.
• The first version of the Photoshop graphics software, devised by Thomas Knoll, ships with Barneyscan image scanners.
• The NeXT computer is released.

  Medicine

• May 1 – The initial case definition of Chronic fatigue syndrome is published, displacing the name Chronic Epstein-Barr virus syndrome.
• Patricia Bath patents the Laserphaco Probe, a device "for ablating and removing cataract lenses".

  Publications

• Stephen Hawking publishes A Brief History of Time.

  Awards

• Nobel Prizes
• * Physics – Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, Jack Steinberger
• * Chemistry – Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, Hartmut Michel
• * Medicine – Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion, George H. Hitchings
• Turing Award – Ivan Sutherland

  Births

Deaths

• January 11 – Isidor Isaac Rabi, Polish American physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for invention of the atomic beam magnetic resonance method of measuring magnetic properties of atoms and molecules.
• January 21 – E. B. Ford, English ecological geneticist and lepidopterist.
• February 15 – Richard Feynman, American physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics.
• April 27 - Valery Legasov, Russian Nuclear Physicist, known for the investigation of causes of the Chernobyl disaster and planning the mitigation of its consequences.
• May 8 – Robert A. Heinlein, American "hard" science fiction author.
• May 20 – Ana Aslan, Romanian biologist.
• May 25 – Ernst Ruska, German winner of Nobel Prize in Physics for work in electron optics.
• September 1 – Luis Walter Alvarez, American experimental physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for bubble chamber research into particle physics.
• October 9 – Felix Wankel, German mechanical engineer.
• December 21 – Nikolaas Tinbergen, Dutch-born ethologist, ornithologist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• December 30 – Dennis H. Klatt, American pioneer of speech synthesis.