Astronomy & Space Exploration:
* 2000: The first near-Earth asteroid (433 Eros) is orbited and landed on by the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft.
* 2001: The International Space Station (ISS) is permanently occupied.
* 2004: The Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity) land on Mars, finding evidence of past liquid water.
* 2006: Pluto is reclassified as a dwarf planet.
* 2009: The Kepler space telescope launches, beginning its mission to find Earth-like planets.
* 2011: The Messenger spacecraft becomes the first to orbit Mercury.
Biology & Genetics:
* 2000: The Human Genome Project completes a first draft of the human genome.
* 2001: The first cloned human embryo is reported (though later disputed).
* 2003: The complete human genome is sequenced.
* 2006: The first artificial life form (a bacterium with a synthetic genome) is created.
* 2009: The first complete sequence of a Neanderthal genome is released.
* 2011: The first human embryo is successfully sequenced.
Physics & Chemistry:
* 2001: The first Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is created in space.
* 2004: The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to David Gross, H. David Politzer, and Frank Wilczek for their discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of strong interactions.
* 2006: The first successful demonstration of quantum teleportation of light occurs.
* 2008: The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Yoichiro Nambu, Makoto Kobayashi, and Toshihide Maskawa for their work on the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry.
* 2011: The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Medicine & Technology:
* 2001: The first stem cell therapy clinical trial begins.
* 2003: The first human gene therapy approved by the FDA.
* 2006: The first commercial spaceflight occurs.
* 2007: The first iPhone is released.
* 2010: The first iPad is released.
* 2011: The first artificial pancreas is approved by the FDA.
Other Notable Events:
* 2000: The first successful cloning of a mammal (Dolly the sheep) is announced.
* 2004: The discovery of the first "super-Earth" exoplanet, Gliese 876 d.
* 2007: The first commercially available electric car, the Tesla Roadster, is released.
* 2009: The Swine flu pandemic.
Note: This is not an exhaustive list, but it highlights some of the major scientific events that occurred during this period.
It's important to remember that scientific progress is a continuous process, and many breakthroughs were made in numerous fields during this time.
