discoveries in last 50 years?

Question

please tell me discoveries of last 50 years and put url if possible

Answer 1

Presumably you want astronomical and space related discoveries (or inventions?), since this is the Astronomy & Space part of Yahoo! Answers.

The major discoveries or inventions of the last 50 years (with some dates given) include the following. To learn more, simply enter each individual item into a Yahoo or Google search.

Spaceflight, first with Sputnik (1957), and subsequently with many more steps culminating with the first manned Moon landing (1969).

The synthesis of the elements in stars (Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler and Hoyle, 1957; there's a 50th anniversary meeting this coming summer).

The revision in the value of the Hubble Constant so that the age of the universe appeared to exceed 10^10 years from cosmological observations(Sandage, ~ 1957-8).

The modern era of stellar structure and evolution and their understanding, from the first such studies ever done with programmable computers (Hoyle and collaborators, 1958). [Those programmable computers had much less computing power than today's simplest machines. The whole modern subject of post main sequence stellar evolution really began slightly earlier, in 1954, when Hoyle & Schwarzschild did breakthrough work in understanding the structure of low-mass red giants, using only desktop electromechanical calculators!]

The first indication from stellar evolution calculations that the age of the Milky Way Galaxy exceeded 10^10 years (Hoyle, 1960).

Quasars (1962 - 63, though not named such until the term was invented by Hong-Yee Chiu in Austin, 1964; I was there on that occasion).

The discovery that novae, dwarf novae and nova-like variables were in fact binary star systems (Kraft, early 1960s), which opened up a vast field leading not only to an understanding of those objects, but also to studies of accretion disks with all their applications to topics as diverse as active galactic nuclei and proto-planetary nebulae).

The original, completely serendipitous discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation (Penzias and Wilson, 1965).

UV-, X-ray, Gamma-ray astronomy, in that temporal order, from above the atmosphere.

Neutron stars --- or pulsars (1967-8) (Discovered by Cambridge graduate student Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, although she did not share in the Nobel Prize related to this. I was present at the Cavendish lab seminar announcing this discovery).

The discovery that the Sun was putting out only ~ one third as many neutrinos as expected. (This was in classic experiments conducted from the late 1960s onwards by Raymond J.Davis, Jr. The experiment had been shown to be scientifically feasible by remarkable calculations by John Bahcall.)

The portable hand-held electronic calculator (Hewlett-Packard, HP35, ~ 1970.)

The concept and nature of black holes.

The first binary pulsar (Hulse and Taylor, 1974). This proved to be a most significant discovery. It led to the first CLEAN and remarkably accurate verification of measurable consequences due to the emission of gravitational radiation (~ 1978). I was there again.

The first suggestion that a previously undetected and possibly dominant universal component --- massive, neutral, weakly interacting particles (later named WIMPs) --- could naturally arise out of the Big Bang formation of the Universe (Lee and Weinberg, 1977). That, plus all the further developments it led to --- the serious consideration of the idea that dark matter of whatever kind could finally solve the long-standing problem of the formation of structure in the Universe, and the yet later openness to the idea of Dark Energy as being even more important in the Universe's overall energy budget.

The development of increasing fast computer chips to replace transistors, and the first home computers capable of working on scientific problems (~ 1979 - 80) and ultimately laptops.

The suggestion that the solar neutrino problem was telling us more about the behaviour of neutrinos beyond the standard model than revealing a flaw with our understanding of the Sun's structure (Mikhayev and Smirnoff, 1985-6). Their idea of "neutrino oscillations" has apparently been proved by a number ot terrestrially based experiments using atmospheric neutrinos or concentrations of neutrino-producing reactors, as well as at the so-called SNO (Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, Canada). This has produced the first hard data for particle physics "beyond the standard model."

Supernova 1987A and neutrinos detected from it (23rd February, 1978).

The apparently constant and quite unexpected nature of the orbital speeds of stars and gas clouds way out from galactic centers (Rubin, mid 1980s onwards?). This was the fundamental work that made the concept of dark matter be taken seriously. In turn, it led on to the very successful flurry and then industry of ever more massive computational studies of structure formation in the expanding Universe, with dark matter of some kind playing a vital role.

The discovery that cosmic distances based on Supernovae of Type II implied that the universe was now ACCELERATING in its expansion, not slowing down, leading to the claim that so-called DARK ENERGY dominated dark matter which in turn dominates over odrinary baryonic matter (late 1990s).

COBE (early 1990s, BOOMERANG early 2000s?) and WMAP (~2004?) --- apparently ever more accurate verifications of both Big Bang and Inflation ideas, ending with values for many parameters --- age of the Universe, mass fractions for baryons, dark matter, and dark energy, of quite remarkable claimed accuracy.

That's enough to be getting on with for now!

Live long and prosper.

Answer 2

We discovered that asteroids and comets can and do still hit planets when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter in 1994. Since then a number of programs have started looking for asteroids in orbits that cross the Earth's orbit and so pose a threat to Earth.

Answer 3

The laser had an huge impact on everything but when it was discovered nobody knew what to do with it. My house has over 20 lasers and all are in CD or DVD drives.

Carbon fibres and nanotubes are interesting technology too.

Even black holes took a while to realise that they existed.

Answer 4

This link shows inventions by year. Simply start in 1957 and come forward.

My opinion for most important? Hard drive (1955) and integrated circuit (1958)

Answer 5

Cosmic microwave background radiation (COBE and WMAP), quasars, gamma-ray bursts, dark matter.