List of years in science (Table) 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998    1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005    2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Related time period or subjects 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s 20th century 21st century 22nd century Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Science more

The year 2002 in science and technology involved some significant events. Contents 1 Astronomy and space exploration 2 Biology 3 Cybernetics 4 Geology 5 Mathematics 6 Medicine 7 Physics 8 Technology 9 Awards 10 Births 11 Deaths 12 References Astronomy and space exploration February 19 - NASA's Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system. May 26 - The Mars Odyssey finds signs of huge water ice deposits on the planet Mars. June 4 - Quaoar is discovered. June 10 - Annular solar eclipse. December 4 - Total solar eclipse. Biology April 18 - New order of insects Mantophasmatodea announced. Cybernetics March 14 - Prof. Kevin Warwick has part of his nervous system experimentally linked to a computer.1 Geology January 17 - Eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo displacing an estimated 400000 people. Mathematics August 6 - Polynomial-time primality test published. November 12 - Grigori Perelman posts the first of a series of eprints to the arXiv in which he proves the century old Poincar conjecture. Medicine December 19 - Clozapine is the first drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for reducing the risk of suicidal behaviour. Physics Claims regarding bubble fusion in which a table-top apparatus is reported as producing small-scale fusion in a liquid undergoing acoustic cavitation are published. Technology January 7- The iMac G4 is introduced by Apple Inc. as the next generation iMac. June 10 - First direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans carried out by Kevin Warwick at the University of Reading. November 4 - A Tactical high energy laser prototype shoots down an incoming artillery shell. Awards Fields Prize in Mathematics: Laurent Lafforgue and Vladimir Voevodsky Nobel Prizes Chemistry John B. Fenn (Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond USA) and Koichi Tanaka (Shimadzu Corp. Kyoto Japan) "for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules" Kurt Wthrich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zrich Switzerland and The Scripps Research Institute La Jolla USA) "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution" Physics Raymond Davis Jr. (Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia USA) and Masatoshi Koshiba (International Center for Elementary Particle Physics University of Tokyo Japan) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos" Riccardo Giacconi (Associated Universities Inc. Washington DC USA) "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources" Medicine Sydney Brenner H. Robert Horvitz and John E. Sulston "for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death" Turing Award: Ron Rivest Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman Wollaston Medal for Geology: Rudolf Trumpy Births Deaths January 8 - Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov (b. 1916) physicist. February 6 - Max Perutz (b. 1914) biologist. February 10 - Harold Furth (b. 1930) expert in plasma physics and nuclear fusion. March 3 - Roy Porter (b. 1946) medical historian. April 18 - Thor Heyerdahl (b. 1914) explorer led the Kon-Tiki expedition. May 20 - Stephen Jay Gould (b. 1941) paleontologist/evolutionist. June 20 - Erwin Chargaff (b. 1905) biochemist. June 29 - Ole-Johan Dahl (b. 1931) computer scientist invented concepts in object-oriented programming. July 4 - Laurent Schwartz (b. 1915) mathematician. August 6 - Edsger Dijkstra (b. 1930) computer scientist. August 31 - George Porter (b. 1920) Nobel laureate in chemistry. September 21 - Robert Lull Forward (b. 1932) science fiction author and physicist. October 18 - Nikolai Rukavishnikov (b. 1932) cosmonaut. November 2 - Charles Sheffield (b. 1935) science fiction author and physicist. References "Cyborg study draws fire". BBC News. 2002-03-22. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1886700.stm. Retrieved 2010-10-07.