Jane Luu

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Dr. Jane Luu
Dr. Jane Luu

Jane Luu (a.k.a. Jane X. Luu) is a Vietnamese American astronomer.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Luu was born in 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.[1] She attended Stanford University, receiving her bachelor's degree in 1984.[2]

[edit] Work as a graduate student and co-discovery of the Kuiper Belt

As a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley[3] and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she worked with David C. Jewitt to discover the Kuiper Belt.[4] In 1992, after five years of observation, they found the first known Kuiper Belt object, using the University of Hawaii's 2.2 meter telescope on Mauna Kea.[5] This object is (15760) 1992 QB1, which she and Jewitt nicknamed "Smiley".[6] She was awarded the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1991. The asteroid 5430 Luu is named in her honor.

[edit] Professional life

After receiving her doctorate, Luu worked as a professor at Harvard University. [7] Luu also served as a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands.[8] Following her time in Europe, Luu returned to the United States and works on instrumentation as a technical staff member at Lincoln Laboratory at MIT.

In December 2004, Luu and Jewitt reported the discovery of crystalline water ice on Quaoar, 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.[9]

[edit] Asteroids co-discovered by Luu

Luu has co-discovered a number of asteroids:

[edit] 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.[10]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.imagiverse.org/interviews/janeluu/jane_luu_21_03_03.htm
  2. ^ http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1998/mayjun/classnotes/featurealum2.html
  3. ^ http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/users/wisdom/extrasolar/Brown.pdf
  4. ^ http://www.imagiverse.org/interviews/janeluu/jane_luu_21_03_03.htm
  5. ^ http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/88inch/2.2-meter-public.htm
  6. ^ http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1998/mayjun/classnotes/featurealum2.html
  7. ^ http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1998/mayjun/classnotes/featurealum2.html
  8. ^ http://www.imagiverse.org/interviews/janeluu/jane_luu_21_03_03.htm
  9. ^ Chang, Kenneth. "Astronomers Entertain Visions of Icy Volcanoes in Faraway Places", The New York Times, December 9, 2004, pp. A33.
  10. ^ http://www.imagiverse.org/interviews/janeluu/jane_luu_21_03_03.htm
  • Luu, Jane; D.C. Jewitt and C. Trujillo (2000). "Water ice in 2060 Chiron and its implications for Centaurs and Kuiper Belt objects". Astrophysical Journal 531: L151-L154. 
  • Luu, Jane; D.C. Jewitt (1998). "Deep Imaging of the Kuiper Belt with the Keck 10-Meter Telescope". Astrophysical Journal 502: L91-L94. 
  • Luu, Jane; B. Marsden, D.C. Jewitt, C. Trujillo, C. Hegenrother, J. Chen and W. Offutt (1997). "A New Dynamical Class of Object in the Outer Solar System". Nature 387: 573. 
  • Luu, Jane; D.C. Jewitt (1996). "Color Diversity among the Centaurs and Kuiper Belt Objects". Astronomical Journal 112: 2310-2318. 
  • Bartusiak, Marcia (February 1996). "The Remarkable Odyssey of Jane Luu". Astronomy: 46. 
  • Luu, Jane; D.C. Jewitt (1992). "High Resolution Surface Brightness Profiles of Near-Earth Asteroids". Icarus 97: 276-287. 
  • Luu, Jane (1991). "CCD Photometry and Spectroscopy of Outer Jovian Satellites". Astronomical Journal 102: 1213-1225. 
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