2020 in science

Events

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

• 1 July
• *Astronomers report that J2157, discovered in 2018, is now known to have 34 billion solar masses and is consuming the equivalent of nearly 1 solar mass every day, making it the fastest-growing black hole in the Universe.
• *Scientist at CERN report that the LHCb experiment has observed a four-charm quark particle never seen before, which is likely to be the first of a previously undiscovered class of particles.
• *Pentadiamond, a new addition to the carbon family, is theorised by scientists at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, with a Young's modulus of almost 1700 GPa, compared with about 1200 GPa for conventional diamond.
• 3 July
• *Scientists report finding that a major genetic risk factor of the COVID-19 virus was inherited from archaic Neanderthals 60,000 years ago.
• *Scientists show that adding an organic-based ionic solid into perovskites can result in substantial improvement in solar cell performance and stability. The study also reveals a complex degradation route that is responsible for failures in aged perovskite solar cells. The understanding could help the future development of photovoltaic technologies with industrially relevant longevity.
• 4 July
• *Science journalists report that, based on current data, the Infection Fatality Rate of COVID-19 and related pandemic is estimated as 0.6%, and the Case Fatality Rate as 5%.
• *Scientists report that COVID-19 may be an airborne disease, and not just one transmitted by droplets of the virus in the air or on surfaces.
• 6 July
• *Astronomers report evidence that the chemical element carbon, the fourth most abundant chemical element in the universe, and one of the most essential chemical elements for the formation of life as we know it, was formed mainly in white dwarf stars, particularly those bigger than two solar masses.
• *The Versatile Video Coding standard is finalised, designed to halve the bitrate of previous formats, and paving the way for on-demand 8K streaming services.
• 8 July
• *Scientists writing in the journal Brain publish evidence that a few mildly affected or recovering COVID-19 patients can be left with serious or potentially fatal brain conditions, such as delirium, inflammation, nerve damage, and psychosis.
• *Mitochondria are gene-edited for the first time, using a new kind of base editor, by a team at the Broad Institute.
• 9 July - The World Health Organization formally recognises that COVID-19 can be transmitted indoors by droplets in the air. People in crowded settings with poor ventilation run the risk of being infected, according to the updated scientific advice.
• 10 July - Astronomers announce the discovery of the South Pole Wall, a massive cosmic structure formed by a giant wall of galaxies that extends across at least 700 million light-years of space.
• 15 July - Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin demonstrate a cobalt-free, high-energy, lithium-ion battery.
• 19 July - The Emirates Mars Mission by the UAE is successfully launched, carrying the Hope probe to Mars, with a scheduled arrival date of February 2021.
• 22 July
• *Astronomers announce images, for the first-time, of multiple exoplanets orbiting a sunlike star, particularly the star TYC 8998-760-1.
• *Archaeologists report the earliest known evidence of humans in the Americas, dating back 33,000 years, twice the previously oldest known settlement of the continent.
• 23 July
• *China successfully launches Tianwen-1, its first rover mission to Mars, with a planned surface landing date of 23 April 2021.
• *Astronomers report the observation of a "hard tidal disruption event candidate" associated with ASASSN-20hx, located near the nucleus of galaxy NGC 6297, and noted that the observation represented one of the "very few tidal disruption events with hard powerlaw X-ray spectra".
• *Lancaster University researcher Mike Ryder describes the nature and rise of the "robot prosumer", derived from modern-day technology and related participatory culture, that, in turn, was substantially predicted earlier by science fiction writers.
• 27 July - A new AI algorithm by the University of Pittsburgh achieves the highest accuracy to date in identifying prostate cancer, with 98% sensitivity and 97% specificity.
• 28 July
• *Marine biologists report that aerobic microorganisms, in "quasi-suspended animation", were found in organically-poor sediments, up to 101.5 million years old, 250 feet below the seafloor in the South Pacific Gyre , and could be the longest-living life forms ever found.
• *Assembly of the ITER experimental fusion reactor officially begins in France, with a scheduled completion date of 2025.
• 30 July - NASA successfully launches its Mars 2020 rover mission to search for signs of ancient life and collect samples for return to Earth. The mission includes technology demonstrations to prepare for future human missions.

  Predicted and scheduled events

• December 21: Jupiter and Saturn come within a 6' arc, giving a rare telescopic view of the two so close together. As the two planets have an apparent size smaller than one arc minute occultations are extremely rare, the next one will happen in the year 7541.

  Date unknown

• Shenzhen East Waste-to-Energy Plant is planned to become operational, the largest waste to energy power plant in the world.
• Waymo, the first self-driving cars in ride-hailing services are announced for 2020.
• The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is expected to achieve first light in 2020.

  Awards

Deaths

• May 1 Judith Esser-Mittag, German gynecologist
• May 2
• *Daniel S. Kemp, American organic chemist
• *George Kauffman, American chemist
• *Bing Liu, Chinese medical researcher
• *Maurice Dayan, French psychoanalyst
• *Meyer Rubin, American geologist
• May 3
• *John Hugh Seiradakis, Greek astronomer
• *Zhang Qian'er, Chinese chemist
• May 5
• *Sergei Adian, Russian mathematician
• *Brian Axsmith, American paleobotanist and paleoecologist
• May 7 Margaret Loutit, New Zealander microbiologist
• May 9 Timo Honkela, Finnish computer scientist
• May 11
• *Terry Erwin, American entomologist
• *Ann Katharine Mitchell, British cryptanalyst and psychologist
• *Ietje Paalman-de Miranda, Dutch mathematician
• *Miloslav Stingl, Czech ethnologist
• May 12
• *Thomas M. Liggett, American mathematician
• *Ernest Vinberg, Russian mathematician
• May 14
• *Bertram S. Brown, American psychiatrist
• *Hans Cohen, Dutch microbiologist
• May 17 Aleksandra Kornhauser Frazer, Slovenian chemist
• May 20 Wan Weixing, Chinese space physicist
• May 21
• *Arnulf Kolstad, Norweigen social psychologist
• *Douglas Tyndall Wright, Canadian civil engineer
• May 22 Peter Harold Cole, Australian electrical engineer
• May 23 Jitendra Nath Pande, Indian pulmonologist
• May 26 Oleh Hornykiewicz, Austrian biochemist
• May 30 John Cole, British geographer
• June 1 Roberto Peccei, Italian physicist
• June 2
• *Geoffrey Burnstock, Australian neuroscientist
• *Tarq Hoekstra, Dutch archeologist
• June 5
• *A. Dale Kaiser, American biochemist
• *Tomisaku Kawasaki, Japanese pediatrician
• *Friedrich Stelzner, German surgeon
• June 7
• *Marina Blagojević, Serbian sociologist
• *James D. Meindl, American electrical engineer
• *Lynika Strozier, American researcher
• June 8 Nicholas Cummings, American psychologist
• June 10
• *Duilio Arigoni, Swiss chemist
• *Murray Hill, New Zealander seed scientist
• *Hans Mezger, German automotive engineer
• *William Tietz, American veterinarian
• June 11
• *Marjorie G. Horning, American biochemist and pharmacologist
• *Bernard J. Matkowsky, American applied mathematician
• June 13 Pepe el Ferreiro, Spanish archeologist
• June 15
• *Beth Levine, American medical researcher
• *Kirk R. Smith, American climatologist
• June 16 John J. Mooney, American chemical engineer
• June 17
• *William C. Dement, American psychiatrist
• *K. Anders Ericsson, Swedish psychologist
• *Michael E. Soulé, American conservation biologist
• June 18 Sergei Khrushchev, Russian and American engineer
• June 19 Ralph Haas, Canadian engineer
• June 21 Anthony J. Naldrett, Canadian geologist
• June 22 Karlman Wasserman, American physiologist
• June 24
• *Robert L. Carneiro, American anthropologist
• *Nigel Weiss, South African astronomer and mathematician
• June 25
• *Lester Grinspoon, American psychiatrist
• *Olivier Le Fèvre, French astrophysicist
• June 27 David Stronach, British archeologist
• June 30 Xiao Bilian, Chinese endocrinologist
• July 1 Ray Matheny, American anthropologist
• July 2
• *Ángela Jeria, Chilean archeologist
• *Xu Qifeng, Chinese engineer
• *Willem van Zwet, Dutch mathematician
• July 3 Erika Taube, German ethnologist
• July 5 Horace Barlow, British neuroscientist
• July 6
• *Ronald Graham, American mathematician
• *Deborah Zamble, Canadian chemist
• July 7
• *Millicent S. Ficken, American ornithologist
• *Juan Rosai, American pathologist
• *Henk Tennekes, American toxicologist
• July 8
• *Norman Allinger, American chemist
• *Flossie Wong-Staal, Chinese and American virologist and molecular biologist
• July 9 Tong Binggang, Chinese physicist
• July 10
• *Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty, Indian and American microbiologist
• *Michael M. Richter, German mathematician and computer scientist
• July 11 Lim Boo Liat, Malaysian zoologist
• July 14
• *Tim Clark, British physician
• *Caesar Korolenko, Russian psychiatrist
• *Alex McCool, American manager of the Space Shuttle Projects Office at NASA
• July 13
• *Grant Imahara, American electrical engineer
• *Zeng Yi, Chinese virologist
• July 15 George Simon, Guyanese archeologist
• July 17
• *Angela von Nowakonski, Brazilian physician and medical researcher
• *C. S. Seshadri, Indian mathematician
• *Ron Tauranac, British and Australian engineer
• July 21 Li Jijun, Chinese geographer and geomorphologist
• July 23
• *Masakazu Konishi, Japanese neurobiologist
• *Jacqueline Noonan, American pediatric cardiologist
• *Ward Plummer, American physicist
• *Paolo Sassone-Corsi, Italian microbiologist
• July 24 Zheng Shouren, Chinese engineer
• July 26
• *R. Stephen Berry, American physical chemist
• *Roger Williams, British hepatologist