Doctoral advisor David Jewitt Name Jane Luu | Role Astronomer | |
 | ||
Residence Lexington, Massachusetts Alma mater Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thesis Physical Studies of Primitive Solar System Bodies (1992 ) Known for Discovery the Kuiper belt Fields Astronomy and Astrophysics Education University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University Similar People David C Jewitt, Chad Trujillo, David J Tholen, Carolyn S Shoemaker, Eugene Merle Shoemaker | ||
Dr jane luu public lecture the new solar system on may 4 2013
Dr. Jane X. Luu (Vietnamese: Lưu Lệ Hằng; born July 1963) is a Vietnamese American astronomer. She was awarded the Kavli Prize (shared with David C. Jewitt and Michael Brown) for 2012 “for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system"
Contents
- Dr jane luu public lecture the new solar system on may 4 2013
- Jane Luu iMovie Documentary
- Early life
- Work as a graduate student and co discovery of the Kuiper Belt
- Professional life
- Personal life
- Honors awards and accolades
- Some publishing
- References
Jane Luu-iMovie Documentary
Early life
Luu was born in July 1963 in South Vietnam to a father who worked as a translator for the U.S. Army. Her father taught her French as a child, beginning her lifelong love of languages.
Luu immigrated to the United States as a refugee in 1975, when the South Vietnamese government fell. She and her family settled in Kentucky, where she had relatives. A visit to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory inspired her to study astronomy. She attended Stanford University, receiving her bachelor's degree in 1984.
Work as a graduate student and co-discovery of the Kuiper Belt
As a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she worked with David C. Jewitt to discover the Kuiper Belt. In 1992, after five years of observation, they found the first known Kuiper Belt object other than Pluto and its largest moon Charon, using the University of Hawaii's 2.2 meter telescope on Mauna Kea. This object is (15760) 1992 QB1, which she and Jewitt nicknamed "Smiley". The American Astronomical Society awarded Luu the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1991. In 1992, Luu received a Hubble Fellowship from the Space Telescope Science Institute and chose the University of California, Berkeley as a host institution. The Phocaea main-belt asteroid 5430 Luu is named in her honor. She received her PhD in 1992 at MIT.
Professional life
After receiving her doctorate, Luu worked as a professor at Harvard University, since 1994. Luu also served as a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Following her time in Europe, Luu returned to the United States and works on instrumentation as a Senior Scientist at Lincoln Laboratory at MIT.
In December 2004, Luu and Jewitt reported the discovery of crystalline water ice on Quaoar, which was at the time the largest known Kuiper Belt object. They also found indications of ammonia hydrate. Their report theorized that the ice likely formed underground, becoming exposed after a collision with another Kuiper Belt object sometime in the last few million years.
In 2012, she won (along with David C. Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles) the Shaw Prize "for their discovery and characterization of trans-Neptunian bodies, an archeological treasure dating back to the formation of the solar system and the long-sought source of short period comets" and the Kavli Prize (shared with Jewitt and Michael E. Brown) “for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system”.
Personal life
Luu enjoys traveling, and has worked for Save the Children in Nepal. She enjoys a variety of outdoor activities and plays the cello. She met her husband, Ronnie Hoogerwerf, who is also an astronomer, while in Leiden, the Netherlands.