Q&A: Kuiper Belt co-discoverer Dr. David Jewitt on his career and studying the Solar System's strangest visitors
By
Niloofar Sharei
A baker's-dozen of insight crammed into one ring.
Summary
An interview with UCLA planetary scientist Dr. David Jewitt, who discusses his discovery of the Kuiper Belt in 1992 alongside graduate student Jane Luu, and his current research on unusual Solar System objects like interstellar visitors. The article is part of a series profiling keynote speakers at the 248th AAS (American Astronomical Society) meeting.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledOn a Mauna Kea night in August 1992, Dr. David Jewitt was blinking through telescope images of the same patch of sky out of pure boredom.
He and his graduate student, Jane Luu, had been searching for moving dots in the outer solar system for more than five years and had found nothing.
The rules of the search were...
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