Jane Luu

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Jane Luu

Click here for Jane's interview!

¨ What is Jane Luu's birthdate and where was she born?
¨ Jane Luu's discovery of the Kuiper Belt

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QUESTION:
What is Jane Luu's birthdate and where was she born?

ANSWER from Imagiverse on 19 April 2006:
Jane Luu was born in South Vietnam. You can read her interview at Imagiverse.ORG:
http://www.imagiverse.org/interviews/janeluu/jane_luu_21_03_03.htm

The birthdate of a living person is something of a personal nature. I am sorry but we can not divulge this information. However, if you read her interview, you will discover some clues about her age.

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QUESTION:
Hello Dr. Luu. I am in 8th grade at the Jefferson Middle School in Wisconsin. We are studying you and what you discovered. Can you tell me what you discovered?

ANSWER from Bonnie Walters on 9 September 2004:
I have portrayed Dr. Luu for two years through our school's Women in History program. I also met and interviewed her for Imagiverse. She is a fascinating person to study and I'm glad your class is doing so.

Dr. Luu discovered the first Kuiper Belt Object (KBOs) with her colleague, David Jewitt, in 1992. She was very, very excited to make this discovery. They had searched for 5 years! Think of it... 5 years with no results to show. It took incredible patience and perserverence to keep on looking. People came up to them saying, "There's nothing out there, you're nuts to keep looking." Since then, at least 500 KBOs have been found.

Here are some links for information on the Kuiper Belt. The first is David Jewitt's Kuiper Belt page:
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/faculty/jewitt/kb.html

NASA's Solar System Exploration Page will give you more information and resources:
http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=KBOs

Finally, I always use Bill Arnett's, The Nine Planets for starting out any research:
http://www.nineplanets.org/

OK, for Dr. Luu's information, of course you can use our interview at Imagiverse:
http://www.imagiverse.org/interviews/janeluu/jane_luu_21_03_03.htm

Here's a link from an online enclyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Luu/

This is a referral to her in a Science Fair Project Bank:
http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Jane_Luu/

Good luck on your research!

Bonnie J. Walters
NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador

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Last Updated:
13 May 2006