Vietnamese woman wins 2012 "Nobel" Prize in Astronomy

“Those discoveries don't help the world at all! But everyone is like that, always wanting to learn more about things they don't know…”

Professor Jane X. Luu, the first Vietnamese-American scientist to receive two major awards in astronomy in 2012, spoke frankly about the value of her discoveries.



Professor Jane X. Luu, winner of both the Shaw Prize and the Kevli Prize in astronomy in 2012. (Photo: Provided by Jane X. Luu)

A little shy and funny when talking about herself and her private life. A little witty and humorous when expressing her views on life. And frank, decisive, passionate when talking about work, about the earth, about dreams. Those are the things that scientist Jane X. Luu, who is working at the Lincoln Laboratory of MIT University, revealed when being interviewed by Nguoi Viet newspaper on the occasion of her name becoming prominent in the world of astronomy.

Two big surprise awards in the same week

The work “Identification of Trans-Neptunian Objects” (TNOs) by Professor Jane X. Luu and her teacher, Professor David C. Jewitt, director of the Institute for Astronomical Research, UCLA, was selected by the Shaw Foundation to be awarded the “Shaw Astronomy Prize 2012” in Hong Kong. This is the prize considered the “Asian Nobel” sponsored by Hong Kong media tycoon Run Run Shaw since 2004, with the amount of 3 million USD, divided equally between the three fields of astronomy, life sciences, and medicine and mathematics.

This same Vietnamese professor, with his discovery of the “Kuiper Belt,” was selected by the Norwegian Kavli Foundation to receive the “Kavli Astronomy Prize 2012.” This prize was initiated by Norwegian scientist Fred Kavli and sponsored by the Kavli Foundation since 2008. The Kavli Astronomy Prize is considered the world’s “Nobel Prize in Astronomy,” with a prize money of 1 million USD.

Thus, in the same week at the end of May, this Vietnamese woman was honored to receive two of the biggest awards for the astronomical research that she and her teacher Jewitt conducted... 20 years ago.
Speaking to Nguoi Viet reporter about her feelings about this great event, Professor Jane X. Luu still felt very surprised, “I really can’t believe it because I did this 20 years ago. When I did it, there was a little bit of a buzz, but it was done. Twenty years later, I didn’t think about it anymore. Now suddenly there are two such big gifts, it’s really surprising. I didn’t expect it because it’s been 20 years.”

Still with a somewhat shy and timid smile of someone not used to talking about herself, she said that the morning she received the email from Hong Kong announcing the Shaw Prize, she thought "someone was joking and it wasn't true."

The Kuiper Belt is a hypothesis of a Dutch-American astronomer named Gerard Kuiper. Since 1951, Gerard Kuiper predicted the existence of a belt around the solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune, which is considered the cradle of comets. But contemporary astronomers believed that the Kuiper Belt was a fantasy, unproven.

Meanwhile, Professor Jane X. Luu and her teacher are still tirelessly searching for the existence of this belt.
At the end of August 1992, the teacher and student discovered the first celestial body of the “Kuiper Belt”. This discovery ended the “fantasy” and opened a new direction in explaining and proving the formation of the Solar System.

Speaking to the press about this discovery, Professor Jane X. Luu said at that time: “We have discovered that there are millions of asteroids out there, on the edge of the Solar System, in the 'Kuiper Belt' like Pluto... This discovery completely changes our concept of what a planet is.”

The path to astronomy

Scientist Jane X. Luu's Vietnamese name is Luu Le Hang.

“So what does the X. in the American name Jane X. Luu mean?” - “It doesn’t mean anything! I just made it up.” The reporter asked and immediately burst into laughter at the famous astronomer’s funny answer.
“Because everyone asked me what my initial name was and I didn’t know, and then people asked Mr. Jewitt the same thing so he said make it up so I made it up.” Professor Jane X. Luu explained the “X.” in her name with a big smile.



Professor Jane X. Luu and daughter Eliot. (Photo: Provided by Jane X. Luu)

Professor Jane X. Luu, who turned 49 in July, lives near Boston and works at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.

Her husband is Dutch, also an astronomer, but now works for Microsoft. She has a 6-year-old adopted daughter, Vietnamese.
Born into a family of four children, Professor Jane X. Luu has an older sister and two younger brothers. Her father worked as a secretary for an American airline company before 1975. That was also the reason why she and her family had the opportunity to leave Vietnam in the final days of the war....

According to (vov)-TN