January 1 - Deadline by which goods in all member states of the European Union must be sold in metric units (this has already been completed everywhere, except in the United Kingdom). Road signs in the UK are unaffected (road signs in all other member states are already in metric units).
November - The NASA'sWISE mission will be launched. It will survey the entire sky in the infrared with far greater sensitivity than any previous mission ever has, over hundreds of millions of astronomical objects will be catalogued.[45]
The final phase of the L.A. Live project will be completed, including a 54-story Ritz-Carlton/JW Marriott hotel and the 14-screen West Coast flagship theatre multiplex operated by the Regal Entertainment Group.
Intel plans to release as many as five new microprocessor variants of the Nehalem microarchitecture throughout the year. The Beckton variant may have as many as eight cores.
Tokyo Police Club's song "Citizens of Tomorrow" has a few lines as to what will (fictionally) happen in 2009, for "our robot masters will know how to clean this mess up and build a better world, for man and machine alike, for the boys and the girls who are slaves building spaceships at night in the fluorescent light".
The West Wing ("The Ticket," 2005): Former President Jed Bartlet opens his presidential library in New Hampshire and chats with some of his former staffers.
Dark Angel (2000-2002): Max Guevara and her "brothers and sisters" escape from Manticore in 2009. America is devastated by an electromagnetic pulse later in the same year.
Family Matters: In a 1994 episode, Carl Winslow sleeps for 15 years and wakes up in the year 2009 where main characters Steve Urkel and Laura Winslow are married with four children.
The Doctor Who episode Last of the Time Lords is set mainly in this year. Also Series 4 of the show is set in 2009 with the episode Partners In Crime, The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky and The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. The events of the Turn Left parallel universe takes place partly here too.
^ United States Mint. The District of Columbia and United States Territories Quarter Program. Accessed 2008-08-23. "In 2009, the United States Mint will mint and issue six quarter-dollar coins in honor of the District of Columbia and the five United States Territories: the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the United States Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands."