Jane Luu

High school (ages 12+)
Space & Astronomy

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/jane-luu

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. When was Jane Luu born?March 1, 1964
2. Where was Jane Luu born?Saigon, South Vietnam
3. Who is Jane Luu?Jane Luu is a scientist who studies icy worlds far beyond the planets in our solar system. She looks at these frozen objects to learn about how our solar system began.
4. Why did Jane Luu study the Kuiper Belt?She studied the Kuiper Belt to learn about the early solar system. The icy bodies there are like frozen time capsules that tell us how the planets formed.

Kuiper Belt: A circumstellar disc in the outer Solar System, extending from the orbit of Neptune at 30 AU to approximately 50 AU from the Sun.
Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs): Celestial bodies orbiting the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune; includes Kuiper Belt Objects and scattered disc objects.
Protoplanetary Disk: A rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas and dust surrounding a young star, from which planets may eventually form.
Planetesimal Accretion: The process by which small solid bodies (planetesimals) in a protoplanetary disk collide and merge to form larger bodies, eventually leading to planets.