Vietnamese woman wins the 2012 Nobel Prize in Astronomy.
"Those discoveries didn't help anyone in the world at all! But everyone is the same; they always want to learn more about things they don't know..."
Professor Jane X. Luu, the first Vietnamese-born scientist to receive two major astronomy awards in 2012, spoke frankly about the value of her discoveries.
Professor Jane X. Liu, winner of both the Shaw Prize and the Kevli Prize in astronomy in 2012. (Image: Provided by Jane X. Liu)
A touch of shyness and playfulness when talking about herself and her private life. A bit witty and humorous when expressing her views on life. And frank, decisive, and passionate when talking about her work, the Earth, and her dreams. These are the qualities that scientist Jane X. Luu, currently working at the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT, revealed in an interview with the Nguoi Viet daily newspaper on the occasion of her rising prominence in the field of astronomy worldwide.
Two big prizes unexpectedly came in the same week.
The work "Identifying Trans-Neptunian Objects" (TNOs) by Professor Jane X. Liu and her mentor, Professor David C. Jewitt, director of the Institute for Astronomy at UCLA, was selected by the Shaw Foundation to receive the 2012 Shaw Prize in Astronomy in Hong Kong. This award, considered the "Asian Nobel Prize," has been sponsored by Hong Kong media mogul Run Run Shaw since 2004, with a prize pool of $3 million divided equally among astronomy, life sciences, and medicine and mathematics.
This same professor of Vietnamese origin, with his work discovering the "Kuiper Belt," was chosen by the Kavli Foundation of Norway to receive the "Kavli Prize for Astronomy 2012." This award was initiated by Norwegian scientist Fred Kavli and has been funded by the Kavli Foundation since 2008. The Kavli Prize for Astronomy is considered the "Nobel Prize of Astronomy" of the world, with a prize money of 1 million USD.
Thus, in the same week at the end of May, this Vietnamese-American woman was honored to receive two of the biggest awards for the astronomical research she and her professor, Jewitt, had been doing for... 20 years.
Speaking to a reporter from Người Việt about her feelings regarding this momentous event, Professor Jane X. Lưu still expressed her surprise, “Honestly, I can’t believe it because I did this 20 years ago. It gave me a bit of a reputation at the time, but it’s over now. Twenty years later, I haven’t thought about it anymore. Now, suddenly receiving two such large gifts is truly surprising. I didn’t expect it because it’s been 20 years.”
With a smile that was still somewhat shy and hesitant, like someone unaccustomed to talking about themselves, she recounted how, on the morning she received the email from Hong Kong announcing the Shaw Prize, she thought it was "a joke, not the truth."
The "Kuiper Belt" is a hypothesis put forward by a Dutch-American astronomer named Gerard Kuiper. From 1951, Gerard Kuiper predicted the existence of a ring around the solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune, which is considered the birthplace of comets. However, contemporary astronomers considered the "Kuiper Belt" to be a fantasy, unproven.
Meanwhile, Professor Jane X. Liu, along with her mentor, continued their diligent search for the existence of this belt.
In late August 1992, the two researchers discovered the first celestial body in the Kuiper Belt. This discovery ended the "myth" 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. Liu stated at the time: “We have discovered millions of asteroids out there, on the edge of the Solar System, in the Kuiper Belt, just like Pluto… This discovery completely changes our understanding 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 means nothing! I just made it up.” The reporter asked, immediately bursting into laughter at the famous astronomer’s amusing answer.
“Because everyone kept asking what my initial name was and I didn’t know, and then people asked Mr. Jewitt the same thing, so he said to just make one up, and I did,” Professor Jane X. Luu explained the “X” in her name with a hearty laugh.
Professor Jane X. Luu and her daughter Eliot. (Photo: Provided by Jane X. Luu)
Professor Jane X. Liu, who turned 49 in July, currently lives near Boston and works for the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT.
Her husband is Dutch and was also an astronomer, but now works for Microsoft. She has a 6-year-old adopted daughter who is 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. This is also why she and her family had the opportunity to leave Vietnam in the final days of the war.
According to (vov)-TN
