Jane Luu

Jane X. Luu, drawing by Dominique Jacquin

Discovered asteroids : 31
(10370) Hylonome 1	February 27, 1995
(15760) Albion 1	August 30, 1992
(15809) 1994 JS 1	May 11, 1994
(15836) 1995 DA 2 1	February 24, 1995
(15874) 1996 TL 66 1 2 3	October 9, 1996
(15875) 1996 TP 66 1 2	October 11, 1996
(19308) 1996 TO 66 1 2	October 12, 1996
(20161) 1996 TR 66 1 2 3	October 8, 1996
(15883) 1997 CR 29 1 2	February 3, 1997
(20108) 1995 QZ 9 1	August 29, 1995
(20161) 1996 TR 66 1 2 3	October 8, 1996
(24952) 1997 QJ 4 1 2 4	August 28, 1997
(24978) 1998 HJ 151 1 2 5	April 29, 1998
(26375) 1999 DE 9 2	February 20, 1999
(33001) 1997 CU 29 1 2 3	February 6, 1997
(58534) Logos 1 2 3	February 4, 1997
(59358) 1999 CL 158 1 2	February 11, 1999
(60608) 2000 EE 173 2 6	March 3, 2000
(66652) Borasisi 1 2	September 8, 1999
(79360) Sila-Nunam 1 2 3	February 3, 1997
(79969) 1999 CP 133 1 2	February 11, 1999
(79978) 1999 CC 158 1 2 7	February 15, 1999
(79983) 1999 DF 9 1 2	February 20, 1999
(91554) 1999 RZ 215 1 2	September 8, 1999
(118228) 1996 TQ 66 1 2 3	October 8, 1996
(129746) 1999 CE 119 1 2	February 10, 1999
(134568) 1999 RH 215 1 2	September 7, 1999
(137294) 1999 RE 215 1 2	September 7, 1999
(137295) 1999 RB 216 1 2	September 8, 1999
(148112) 1999 RA 216 1 2	September 8, 1999
(181708) 1993 FW 1	March 28, 1993
1together with David C. Jewitt 2together with Chad Trujillo 3together with Jun Chen 4thtogether with K. Berney 5together with David J. Tholen 6thtogether with Wyn Evans 7thtogether with Scott S. Sheppard

Jane X. Luu (born Lưu Lệ Hằng in 1963 in Saigon , South Vietnam ) is a Vietnamese-American astronomer .

Luu, whose father worked as a translator for the US Army in Vietnam, came to the US as a refugee in 1975 . She first lived in Kentucky and from 1976 in Southern California . Luu studied astronomy at Stanford University and received her bachelor's degree in 1984. She continued her studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where she received her PhD in 1990 under David C. Jewitt ( Physical Studies of Primitive Solar System Bodies ). For her doctoral thesis, she mainly worked at the University of Hawaii, where Jewitt had already moved in 1988. There they made their decisive discovery of an object in the Kuiper Belt on August 30, 1992 at the Mauna Kea Observatory with CCD cameras .

After completing her doctorate at the Harvard Smithsonian Center and 1992/93 Hubble Fellow at Berkeley and Stanford, she was an Assistant Professor at Harvard University from 1994 . After spending some time (1998 to 2002) at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands , she returned to the USA and works as a Senior Scientist at the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There she mainly deals with instrument making. She is on the Origin of the Solar System Committee of NASA and in various astronomical committees that are responsible for the allocation of observation times at telescopes, for example for the Planetary Science Decadal Survey (2013-2022) of the National Academy of Sciences.

Together with David C. Jewitt she discovered the first Kuiper belt object (15760) Albion (formerly "1992 QB ₁ "), which they unofficially named Smiley after the character George Smiley from the novels by John le Carré . In the following years, she discovered many more Kuiper belt objects with Jewitt and others (twenty-one by 1996).

She is married to the astronomer Ronnie Hoogerwerf, whom she met in Leiden, and has one daughter. As a hobby she plays the cello and travels, for example she was in Tibet immediately after the border was opened in 1986.

The asteroid (5430) Luu is named in her honor.

Awards

• 1991 Annie Jump Cannon Prize for Astronomy
• 2012 Shaw Prize in Astronomy with Jewitt
• 2012 Kavli Prize for Astrophysics with Jewitt and Michael E. Brown
• Foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences

Web links

• Portrait in Stanford Magazine 1999
• Marcia Bartusiak The remarkable odyssey of Jane Luu , 1996, pdf
• Autobiography at the Shaw Prize