1998 in science

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The year 1998 in science and technology involved many events, some of which are included below.

Astronomy and space exploration

January 6 - The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon and later found evidence for frozen water on the moon's surface.
January 8 - Cosmologists announce that the expansion rate of the universe is increasing.
March 2 - Data sent from the Galileo spaceprobe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
March 5 - NASA announced that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon had found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fuelling station.
July 5 - Japan launches a probe to Mars, and thus joins the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation.
October 29 - Space Shuttle Discovery blasts-off with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. He became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.
The first of four 8.4 m reflecting telescopes opens in the Very Large Telescope program of the European Southern Observatory at Cerro Paranal in Chile.

July 17 - Biologists report in the journal Science how they sequenced the genome of the bacterium that causes syphilis, Treponema pallidum.
February 19 - RNA interference first elucidated in C. elegans.

February 10 - XML is published as a recommendation of the W3C.
June 2 - The CIH virus is discovered in Taiwan.
The first working 2-qubit nuclear magnetic resonance computer is demonstrated at the University of California, Berkeley.

February 4 - An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter Scale in northeast Afghanistan kills more than 5,000.
March 14 - An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hits southeastern Iran.
May 30 - A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits northern Afghanistan killing up to 5,000.
July 17 - A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake destroys 10 villages in Papua New Guinea killing an estimated 1,500, leaving 2,000 more unaccounted for and thousands more homeless.

January 14 - Researchers in Dallas, Texas present findings about an enzyme that slows aging and cell death (apoptosis).

April 5 - In Japan, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge linking Shikoku with Honshū, at a cost of about US$3.8 billion, opens to traffic, becoming the largest suspension bridge in the world.