Jane Luu

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

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. [http://www.imagiverse.org/interviews/janeluu/jane_luu_21_03_03.htm Jane Luu ] ] She attended Stanford University, receiving her bachelor's degree in 1984. [http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1998/mayjun/classnotes/featurealum2.html May/June 1998 Feature Alum, Jane Luu, '84 ] ]

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

As a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley [http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/users/wisdom/extrasolar/Brown.pdf] 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, using the University of Hawaii's 2.2 meter telescope on Mauna Kea. [ [http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/88inch/2.2-meter-public.htm University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope - Public Information ] ] 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 University of California, Berkeley. The asteroid 5430 Luu is named in her honor. [cite book | title = Marquis Who's Who | date = 2006]

Professional life

After receiving her doctorate, Luu worked as a professor at Harvard University. 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 technical staff member 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. [cite news | last = Chang | first = Kenneth | title = Astronomers Entertain Visions of Icy Volcanoes in Faraway Places | pages = A33 | publisher = The New York Times | date = December 9, 2004]

Asteroids co-discovered by Luu

Luu has co-discovered a number of asteroids:
*10370 Hylonome
*(15760) 1992 QB₁
*(15809) 1994 JS
*(15836) 1995 DA₂
*(15874) 1996 TL₆₆
*(15875) 1996 TP₆₆
*(19308) 1996 TO₆₆
*(20161) 1996 TR₆₆
*(24952) 1997 QJ₄
*(24978) 1998 HJ₁₅₁
*(26375) 1999 DE₉
*(33001) 1997 CU₂₉
*(58534) 1997 CQ₂₉
*(59358) 1999 CL₁₅₈
*(60608) 2000 EE₁₇₃
*66652 Borasisi
*(79360) 1997 CS₂₉
*(79969) 1999 CP₁₃₃
*(79978) 1999 CC₁₅₈
*(79983) 1999 DF₉

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.

External links

* [http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~jewitt/quaoar.html "Crystalline Ice on Kuiper Belt Object (50000) Quaoar"] (article co-written with David Jewitt, published in December 9, 2004 issue of Nature)
* [http://www.roe.ac.uk/~jkd/kbo_proc/luu.pdf "The Shape Distribution of Kuiper Belt Objects"] (paper co-written with Pedro Lacerda, June 2003)
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&sim_query=YES&ned_query=YES&lpi_query=YES&iau_query=YES&aut_xct=NO&aut_logic=OR&obj_logic=OR&author=Luu%2C+J&object=&start_mon=&start_year=&end_mon=&end_year=&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=&nr_to_return=100&start_nr=1&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&min_score=&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&sort=SCORE&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&obj_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1 NASA Astrophysics Data System publication listing]
* [http://amateurastronomy.org/Events/EH326.html "Comet Impact on McMaster"] (presentation summary, November 2001)
* [http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/users/wisdom/extrasolar/kenyonluu98.pdf "Accretion in the Early Kuiper Belt I. Coagulation and Velocity Evolution"] (paper co-written with Scott J. Kenyon, published in May 1998 Astronomical Journal)
* [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJL/v494n1/975811/sc0.html "Optical and Infrared Reflectance Spectrum of Kuiper Belt Object 1996 TL66"] (paper co-written with D.C. Jewitt, January 1998)

References

*cite journal
last = Luu
first = Jane
coauthors = D.C. Jewitt and C. Trujillo
title = Water ice in 2060 Chiron and its implications for Centaurs and Kuiper Belt objects
journal = Astrophysical Journal
volume = 531
pages = L151–L154
date = 2000
doi = 10.1086/312536

*cite journal
last = Luu
first = Jane
coauthors = D.C. Jewitt
title = Deep Imaging of the Kuiper Belt with the Keck 10-Meter Telescope | journal = Astrophysical Journal
volume = 502
pages = L91–L94
date = 1998
doi = 10.1086/311490

*cite journal
last = Luu
first = Jane
coauthors = B. Marsden, D.C. Jewitt, C. Trujillo, C. Hegenrother, J. Chen and W. Offutt
title = A New Dynamical Class of Object in the Outer Solar System
journal = Nature
volume = 387
pages = 573
date = 1997
doi = 10.1038/42413

*cite journal
last = Luu
first = Jane
coauthors = D.C. Jewitt
title = Color Diversity among the Centaurs and Kuiper Belt Objects
journal = Astronomical Journal
volume = 112
pages = 2310–2318
date = 1996
doi = 10.1086/118184

*cite journal
last = Bartusiak
first = Marcia
title = The Remarkable Odyssey of Jane Luu
journal = Astronomy
pages = 46
date = February 1996

*cite journal
last = Luu
first = Jane
coauthors = D.C. Jewitt
title = High Resolution Surface Brightness Profiles of Near-Earth Asteroids
journal = Icarus
volume = 97
pages = 276–287
date = 1992
doi = 10.1016/0019-1035(92)90134-S

*cite journal
last = Luu
first = Jane
title = CCD Photometry and Spectroscopy of Outer Jovian Satellites
journal = Astronomical Journal
volume = 102
pages = 1213–1225
date = 1991
doi = 10.1086/115949