The year 1962 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• January 26 - Ranger 3 is launched to study the Moon. The space probe later missed the Moon by 22,000 miles.
• February 2 - For the first time in 400 years Neptune and Pluto align.
• February 20 - Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn orbits the Earth three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes becoming the first American to orbit the Earth.
• April 26 - The Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.

Computer science

• At MIT, Ivan Sutherland uses the TX-2 computer to write Sketchpad, the origin of graphical programs used for computer-aided design.
• October - J.C.R. Licklider becomes the first head of the computer research program at ARPA, which he names the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO).

Awards

• Fields Prize in Mathematics: Lars Hörmander and John Milnor
• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics - Lev Davidovich Landau
  • Chemistry - Max Ferdinand Perutz, John Cowdery Kendrew
  • Medicine - Francis Harry Compton Crick, James Dewey Watson, Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins

Deaths

• February 19 - Georgios Papanikolaou (b. 1883), inventor of the Pap smear.
• March 24 - Auguste Piccard (b. 1884), physicist and explorer.
• November 18 - Niels Bohr (b. 1885), Danish physicist.
• December 20 - Emil Artin (b. 1898), mathematician.
• December 24 - Wilhelm Ackermann (b. 1896), mathematician.

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