Jane Luu

In 1992, Jane Luu and David Jewitt discovered 1992 QB1, the first confirmed object in the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of Neptune. This discovery was made using the University of Hawaii's telescope on Mauna Kea and proved the existence of a population of icy bodies in the outer solar system.

Jane Luu and David Jewitt spent several years using CCD imaging to systematically search for faint objects beyond Neptune, a region many astronomers at the time believed was largely empty. Their persistence paid off with the detection of 1992 QB1, which opened the floodgate for hundreds of subsequent Kuiper Belt discoveries.

Jane Luu, together with David Jewitt, received the Shaw Prize in Astronomy in 2012 for their discovery and characterization of the Kuiper Belt. The discovery fundamentally expanded understanding of the solar system's structure and the population of objects beyond Neptune.

Jane Luu conducted much of her key Kuiper Belt research using telescopes at the Mauna Kea Observatories in Hawaii while affiliated with institutions including the University of California, Berkeley and MIT. The high altitude and dark skies of Mauna Kea were essential for detecting the extremely faint light reflected by distant solar system objects.