2020 in science

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A number of significant scientific events are scheduled to occur in 2020.

Events

January

6 January: Physicians issue recommendations for testosterone treatment in adult men with age-related Low T and includes treatment only if there is a notable improvement of sexual dysfunction.

• 1 January
  • Researchers demonstrate an artificial intelligence (AI) system, based on a Google DeepMind algorithm, that is capable of surpassing human experts in breast cancer detection.
  • Astrophysicist Ronald Mallet proposes a theoretical way of building a time machine, albeit with limitations, based on ring lasers and special and general relativity equations.
• 3 January
  • Astronomers report evidence that suggests that the planet Venus is currently volcanically active, and the residue from such activity may be a potential source of nutrients for possible microorganisms in the Venusian atmosphere, according to researchers.
• 6 January
  • The American College of Physicians issues clinical guidelines for testosterone treatment in adult men with age-related low levels of testosterone. The guidelines are supported by the American Academy of Family Physicians. The guidelines include patient discussions regarding testosterone treatment for sexual dysfunction; a yearly patient evaluation regarding possible notable improvement and, if none, to discontinue testosterone treatment; physicians should consider intramuscular treatments, rather than transdermal treatments, due to costs and since the effectiveness and harm of either method is similar; and, testosterone treatment for reasons other than possible improvement of sexual dysfunction may not be recommended.
  • NASA reports the discovery of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The exoplanet orbits the star TOI 700 101.4 light-years away in the Dorado constellation.
  • Astronomers report that a repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB) (namely, FRB 180916), the second such FRB precisely located, originated from a medium-sized spiral galaxy 500 million light-years away.
  • The Chinese paddlefish is officially declared extinct.
  • A rare circumbinary planet, called TOI 1338 b, is discovered by Wolf Cukier, a 17-year-old intern at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

6 January: Astronomers report the detection of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized exoplanet in the habitable zone discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). (Artist concept)

• 7 January
  • Astronomers at Harvard describe the "Radcliffe Wave", a huge ribbon of gas extending 9,000 light years in length and flowing 500 light years above and below the galactic plane, with approximately three million solar masses.
  • The National Science Foundation (NSF) renames the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO) in honor of astronomer Vera Rubin who is notable for her pioneering work with galaxy rotation rates which provided evidence for the existence of dark matter.
• 8 January
  • The American Cancer Society reports a 2.2% drop in the cancer death rate between 2016 and 2017, the largest single-year decline in mortality for this disease ever recorded in the United States.
  • Scientists publish evidence from Siberian caves suggesting that summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean plays an essential role in stabilising permafrost and its large store of carbon.
• 10 January – Scientists report the discovery of the oldest known occurrence of an animal digestive tract, found in fossils, unearthed near Pahrump, Nevada, of Cloudinidae, an extinct wormlike organism that lived during the late Ediacaran period about 550 million years ago.
• 11 January – After a three-year trial that included testing, commissioning, calibrations and operations authorities declare that China's FAST telescope – the world's largest filled-aperture radio telescope – is starting formal operations after it passed its national acceptance test.

16 January: Scientists report that the extinction of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago was mostly a result of a meteorite impact and not volcanism.

• 13 January
  • A study finds that ocean temperatures were at a record high in 2019 and underwent the largest single-year increase of the decade.
  • Astronomers report that the oldest material on Earth found so far are Murchison meteorite particles that have been determined to be 7 billion years old, billions of years older than the 4.54 billion years age of the Earth itself.
• 15 January
  • Astronomers report, for the first time, the origin of phosphorus, an essential element of life as we know it. Phosphorus was found to be initially formed in star-forming regions, and carried by comets, in the form of phosphorus monoxide, throughout outer space, including the early Earth.
  • Scientists report that Candidatus Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum, a type of Asgard archaea microorganism, may be a possible link between simple prokaryotic and complex eukaryotic microorganisms about two billion years ago.
  • Paleontologists report the discovery of Wulong bohaiensis, Chinese for "dancing dragon," a very small feathered dinosaur that lived 120 million years ago, and that may help better explain the link between dinosaurs and birds.
• 16 January
  • Scientists report that the extinction of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago was mostly a result of a meteorite impact and not a result of volcanism.
  • The giant squid genome is sequenced for the first time.
  • Quantum physicists report the first direct splitting of one photon into three using for which they used spontaneous parametric down-conversion and which may have applications in quantum technology.

21 January: Researchers present evidence that the platypus is at risk of extinction.

• 17 January – For the first time, scientists report a video of atoms bonding and separating.
• 20 January – Astronomers, using X-ray reverbreration echo mapping techniques, report the mass and spin, for the first time, of a supermassive black hole, particularly the black hole in the middle of the IRAS 13224-3809 galaxy located about 1 billion light-years from Earth.
• 21 January
  • A new species of plumed moth is discovered, named Alucita udovichenkoi.
  • Scientists report that the oldest recognised asteroid impact occurred in Western Australia more than 2.2 billion years ago and that it might have ended the ice age at that time.
  • A study led by the University of Bristol finds record high emissions of the potent greenhouse gas, HFC-23.
  • Researchers from the University of New South Wales present evidence that the platypus is at risk of extinction, due to a combination of water resource development, land clearing, climate change and increasingly severe periods of drought.
  • Researchers at Ohio State University develop a single molecule that can absorb sunlight from the entire visible spectrum for the production of the fuel hydrogen, harnessing more than 50% more solar energy than current solar cells can.
  • A study by researchers at Columbia's School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory finds that man-made ozone-depleting substances (ODS) caused the largest share of global warming and roughly half of half of Arctic warming and sea ice loss from 1955 to 2005.
    

    31 January: Scientists and journalists report overviews of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak.
• 22 January – China releases a large amount of data and high-resolution images from the lander and rover of the Chang'e 4 mission which has been studying the far side of the Moon since 3 January 2019.
• 23 January
  • Researchers at the University of London announce the first replication of a vocal tract and voice simulation of an Egyptian mummy (the priest Nesyamun).
  • Marine biologists at the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Queensland in Australia announce new findings that provide evidence that genus Hemiscyllium – also known as "walking sharks" as they can walk on land – was the newest genus of sharks in terms of historical findings on biological evolution.
• 24 January – For the first time, scientists discover mitochondria existing in human blood that are not part of larger cells.
• 27 January
  • A new species of dinosaur is discovered, Allosaurus jimmadseni, from genus Allosaurus.
  • Scientists from Michigan State University and Stanford University demonstrate a "Trojan horse" designer-nanoparticle that makes blood cells eat away – from the inside out – portions of atherosclerotic plaque that cause heart attacks and are the current most common cause of death globally.
• 28 January – A new study finds that many of Earth's biodiverse ecosystems are in danger of collapse. The study mapped over 100 high-risk ecosystems and habitats in specific locations, and noted the highly detrimental patterns in each one that result from climate change and local human activities.
• 31 January – Scientists and journalists report overviews of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak, including the possible infectability, mortality rate, incubation time, worldwide ability to contain the infection, and estimated time for a vaccine (along with a comparison with other similar outbreaks).

February

6 February: Meteorologists report a record high temperature of 18.3 °C (64.9 °F) on the northern tip of Antarctica (warming trend 1957 to 2006 is pictured).

• 3 February – Astronomers report that, for the first time, repeating pulses from a source of fast radio bursts (FRB)s seem to have a regular periodicity, particularly FRB 180916, about 500 million light years from Earth, which have been found to have a 16.35+0.18
  −0.18-day pulse cycle.
• 5 February
  • Scientists of the International Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment announce that they have found a way to squeeze the muons of a muon beam into a smaller volume. The muons are cooled into a denser cloud by being directed through specially designed energy-absorbing materials while the beam is tightly focused by powerful superconducting magnetic lenses and can then be accelerated by a normal particle accelerator in a precise direction. This technique may allow the construction of a muon collider. Cooling the muons beams is crucial to achieve a high collision rate.
  • Researchers assess that trophic rewilding, which restores lost species to ecosystems, can help mitigate climate change. Extant-Native Trophic (ENT) would restore large-herbivore and -carnivore guilds which could reduce methane emissions and could be an "important complementary strategy to natural climate solutions to ensure other nature-based benefits to biodiversity conservation and society are also delivered".
  • Scientists develop a CRISPR-Cas12a-based gene editing system that can probe and control several genes at once and can implement logic gating to e.g. detect cancer cells and execute therapeutic immunomodulatory responses.
• 6 February – A record-breaking 18.3 °C (64.9 °F) temperature is recorded at an Argentine weather base on the northern tip of Antarctica, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The previous record was 17.5 °C (63.5 °F) in March 2015.

12 February: NASA releases an improved version of the Pale Blue Dot image taken of Earth 6 billion km away by the Voyager 1 space probe on 14 Feb 1990.

• 10 February
  • NASA announces preliminary approval of a sample-return mission to the planet Mars.
  • Scientists of NASA's Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) publish conclusions from mapped methane hotspots of an Arctic 30,000‐km² study domain. They used the AVIRIS—NG instrument on flights over the Arctic to map the hotspots and quantified a power law dependence of the emissions on distance to nearest standing water.
  • Scientists report that bats' heightened immune responses to viruses like SARS-CoV-2 can facilitate the evolution of rapidly-replicating viruses that cause enhanced virulence following emergence into secondary hosts with other immune systems such as humans.
• 11 February
  • Quantum engineers report that they have created artificial atoms in silicon quantum dots for quantum computing and that artificial atoms with a higher number of electrons can be more stable qubits than previously thought possible. Enabling silicon-based quantum computers may make it possible to reuse of manufacturing technology of "classical" modern-day computer chips among other advantages.
  • Researchers report that their projections show that the number of compound hot extremes that combine daytime and nighttime heat could quadruple by 2100 in the Northern Hemisphere even if emissions are brought down to meet the Paris climate deal goals.

13 February: NASA reports more support for finding complex organic compounds on 486958 Arrokoth, a Kuiper Belt object visited by the New Horizons space probe on 1 Jan 2019.

• 12 February
  • NASA releases a greatly improved image of the iconic Pale Blue Dot view of Earth from 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles) away that was taken by the Voyager 1 space probe on 14 February 1990.
  • A research team shows that by combining two nanomaterials they can create a nanoscale device that mimics the neural pathways of brain cells used for human vision and can e.g. detect faces.
  • Researchers publish their discovery of a new class of glycopeptide antibiotics with a novel mode of action — the known antibiotic complestatin and the newly discovered corbomycin. These have low levels of resistance development, can be capable of treating drug-resistant infections and were discovered using a methodology that analyses the phylogeny of genes and lack of known resistance determinants.
  • Scientists publish a study which shows that present-day West Africans trace a substantial proportions of up to almost a fifth of their genetic ancestry to an extinct human species - a ghost population. They estimate that the species split from the ancestors of Neanderthals and modern humans between 360,000 and 1 million years ago and that interbreeding occurred at some point in the past 124,000 years and approximately 43,000 years ago.
• 13 February – NASA publishes the latest findings, including further support for the presence of a mixture of organic compounds called tholins, about 486958 Arrokoth, a trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper Belt that the New Horizons space probe visited during a flyby on 1 January 2019.
• 14 February
  • Astronomers report that the brightness of the star Betelgeuse had not only dropped by a factor of approximately 2.5, from magnitude 0.5 to 1.5, but now the star may no longer be round. Nonetheless, astronomers believe a supernova event may not be imminent.
  • Quantum physicists develop a novel single-photon source which may allow to bridge semiconductor-based quantum-computers that use photons by converting the state of an electron spin to the polarisation of a photon. They show that they can generate a single photon in a controlled way without the need for randomly formed quantum dots or structural defects in a diamonds.
  • A research team announces the discovery of a new electronic state of matter. They show that when electrons can be made to attract one another, they can form sets of two to five electrons that behave like new types of particles.
  • The Breakthrough Listen project for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) announces the release of nearly 2 petabytes of data after a petabyte of radio and optical telescope data was released in June 2019. It comes from a survey of the radio spectrum between 1 and 12 gigahertz (GHz) and is the largest release of SETI data in the history of the field.
  • Scientists report the development of a relatively long-lasting and economical catalyst "Nanocatalysts on Single Crystal Edges" that recycles the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane into hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can e.g. be used in fuels.

18 February: Scientists report an unstable western flank of the Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador that may result in a large landslide.

• 17 February – Astronomers report, for the first time, the detection of radio waves related to an exoplanet: in this instance, the radio waves may have resulted from the interaction between the red dwarf star, GJ 1151 and a "short-period terrestrial-mass planet".
• 18 February – Scientists report warning signs of flank instability of the Ecuadorian Tungurahua volcano. A potential collapse of the western flank could result in a large landslide.
• 19 February
  • Scientists present an atomic-level image using cryogenic electron microscopy of an essential protein used to access cells by the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus that is responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak. This image may help in more quickly finding a cure or to develop medical countermeasures (MCMs) for the viral infection.
  • Researchers report evidence for an early domestication of dogs before 28,500 years ago, dating the earliest known example of a human domestication to sometime in the middle or upper Paleolithic during the Last Glacial Period.
• 22 February
  • Astronomers report that the star Betelgeuse, that has been undergoing a substantial decrease in brightness since October 2019, may have stopped dimming, and may now be beginning to again brighten, all but ending the current dimming episode. Further studies of the star, reported on 24 February 2020, found no significant change in the infrared over the last 50 years, and seems unrelated to the recent visual fading, suggesting, despite speculations, that an impending core collapse, resulting in a supernova explosion, may be unlikely. Even further related studies, also reported on 24 February 2020, suggest that occluding "large-grain circumstellar dust" may be the most likely explanation for the dimming of the star.
  • Scientists from Harvard University, along with physics and biotech companies PLEX Corporation and Bruker Scientific, publish details of Acfer 086, believed to be the first meteorite to contain a protein, which researchers have named hemolithin.

25 February: Discovery reported of the first animal, a parasite of salmon named Henneguya salminicola, that does not use oxygen to produce energy, and does not have mitochondria.

• 24 February
  • A study of the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, published in Nature, finds that 21% of Australia's forests (excluding Tasmania) have burnt down, an amount described in the journal as "unprecedented" and "greatly exceed[ing] previous fires both within Australia and globally."
  • Paleontologists report the discovery of 1 billion-year-old micro-fossils of 2 mm sized green seaweeds called Proterocladus antiquus. The algae could produce oxygen via photosynthesis and is a close relative of the ancestor of all contemporary green plants including land plants which evolved ca. 450 million years ago. Previously the oldest green seaweeds were dated to roughly 800 million years ago.
  • Scientists report the detection of thiophene organic molecules by the Curiosity rover on the planet Mars. It's not currently known if the detected thiophenes — usually associated on Earth with kerogen, coal and crude oil — are the result of biological or non-biological processses.
  • Initial phase 1 testing of a Coronavirus vaccine from biotechnology company Moderna is reported to start soon.
• 25 February
  • Scientists at Tel Aviv University report the discovery of the first non-oxygen breathing animal, Henneguya salminicola, a 10-celled parasite that lives in salmon muscle.
  • Scientists visualize a quantum measurement: by taking snapshots of ion states at different times of measurement via coupling of a trapped ion qutrit to the photon environment they show that the change of the degree of superposition and therefore of probability of state after measurement happens gradually under the measurement influence.
• 26 February – Chinese astronomers report, for the first time, a high-resolution image of a lunar ejecta sequence, and, as well, direct analysis of its internal architecture. These were based on observations made by the Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) on board the Yutu-2 rover, part of the Chang'e 4 mission, while studying the far side of the Moon.
• 27 February – Astronomers report that a cavity in the Ophiuchus Supercluster, originating from a supermassive black hole, is a result of the largest known explosion in the Universe since the Big Bang.

March

5 March: NASA names the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance.

• 5 March
  • NASA officially names the originally titled Mars 2020 rover to the newly titled Perseverance rover, after conducting a student naming contest in the Fall of 2019.
  • Computer security experts report another Intel chip security flaw, besides the Meltdown and Spectre flaws, with the systematic name CVE-2019-0090 (or, "Intel CSME Bug"). This newly found flaw is not fixable with a firmware update, and affects nearly "all Intel chips released in the past five years".
• 10 March
  • Physicist Lucas Lombriser of the University of Geneva presents a possible way of reconciling the two significantly different determinations of the Hubble constant by proposing the notion of a nearby vast "bubble", 250 million light years in diameter, that is half the density of the rest of the universe.
  • Scientists publish evidence that even large ecosystems can collapse on relatively short timescales. Their paper suggests that once a 'point of no return' is reached, the Amazon rainforest could shift to a savannah-type mixture of trees and grass within 50 years.

16 March: First human clinical trial of COVID-19 vaccine.

• 11 March – Researchers using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) report the discovery of WASP-76b, an exoplanet with temperatures of 2,400°C (4,352°F) that rains molten iron.
• 12 March – Astronomers report observational evidence of "ongoing nucleus fragmentation" from the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov.
• 13 March – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grants emergency authorisation for a coronavirus test by Swiss diagnostics maker Roche. The automated cobas 8800 system provides a ten-fold improvement in the speed of patient testing, with capacity for up to 4,128 results in 24 hours.
• 14 March – Chinese news announces that the first confirmed case of the COVID-19 disease, caused by the SARS-cov-2 virus, was traced back to a 55-year-old patient in Hubei province, and was reported in a Chinese newspaper on 17 November 2019. To date (14 March 2020), 67,790 cases and 3,075 deaths due to the virus have been reported in Hubei province; a case fatality rate (CFR) of 4.54%.
• 16 March – The first Phase 1 clinical trial evaluating a potential vaccine to protect against COVID-19 begins at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in Seattle.

Predicted and scheduled events

• July 17: Planned launch of NASA's Perseverance mission (previously called Mars 2020) to study the habitability of Mars and prepare for future human missions.
• July 25: ESA's ExoMars rover Rosalind Franklin will be launched to Mars.
• July: The UAE will launch a probe, The Hope, to Mars.
• December 21, 2020: Jupiter and Saturn come within a 6' arc, giving a rare telescopic view of the two so close together. No case has ever been found where Jupiter and Saturn had a mutual occultation.

Date unknown

• Several new rockets have planned maiden flights in 2020 in a race to lower launch costs, including Ariane 6, H3 and first orbital flights of SpaceX Starship.
• Shenzhen East Waste-to-Energy Plant is planned to become operational, the largest waste to energy (WET) power plant in the world.
• Japan will host a World Robot Summit in August and October.
• 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.
• KAGRA plans to join LIGO and Virgo in the search for more gravitational wave events.

Deaths

• February 5 – Stanley Cohen, American biochemist and Nobel laureate (b. 1922)
• February 7 – Li Wenliang, Chinese ophthalmologist (b. 1986)
• February 12 – Geert Hofstede, Dutch social psychologist (b. 1928)
• February 13 – Rajendra K. Pachauri, Indian evironmental scientist (b. 1940)
• February 16 – Larry Tesler, American computer scientist (b. 1945)
• February 24 – Katherine Johnson, American mathematician (b. 1918)
• February 28 – Freeman Dyson, American theoretical physicist and mathematician (b. 1923)
• March 9 – Richard K. Guy, British and Canadian mathematician (b. 1916)

See also

• 2020 in spaceflight
• List of emerging technologies
• List of years in science

External links

• Media related to 2020 in science at Wikimedia Commons
• Science Summary 2020, monthly images for entries of this list