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The year 1957 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy and space exploration

• October 4 - Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite

• November 3 - Launch of Sputnik 2, with a dog called Laika on board, the first living thing sent into space.

• December 6 - US attempted launch of Vanguard TV3 which fails after just two seconds in the air.

• Project Orion begins, a U.S. program to build a spacecraft powered by nuclear explosions.

Biology

• Structure of myoglobin determined by x-ray crystallography

Computer science

• April - IBM delivers the first compiler for the FORTRAN scientific programming language. It becomes the most widely used computer language for technical work.
• Robert C. Prim independently rediscovers Prim's algorithm. It was first discovered in 1930 by Vojtěch Jarník and independently rediscovered again by Edsger Dijkstra in 1959.

Exploration

• Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station established

Physics

• BCS theory of superconductivity developed by John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and Robert Schrieffer

Awards

• Nobel Prizes:
  • Physics - Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee
  • Chemistry- Lord Alexander R Todd
  • Medicine - Daniel Bovet

Births

• July 12 - Rick D. Husband (d. 2003), American astronaut.

Deaths

• February 8 - John von Neumann (b. 1903), mathematician.
• February 18 - Henry Norris Russell (b. 1877), astronomer.
• May 7 - Wilhelm Filchner (b. 1877), explorer.
• August 21 - Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (b. 1888), meteorologist and oceanographer.