David C. Jewitt

David C. Jewitt is an astronomer who studies the Solar System, focusing on its smaller objects. He works at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he holds several important positions. Jewitt is best known for being the first person, together with Jane Luu, to discover a body beyond Pluto and Charon in the Kuiper belt. This discovery helped scientists learn more about the space beyond our planet and the many small objects that exist there. His work continues to be important for understanding our Solar System.

Early life

David Jewitt was born in London, England, in 1958. His family lived in a neighborhood called Tottenham in north London.

When he was a child, he saw bright streaks of light in the sky called meteors, which sparked his love for space. Seeing news about NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon made him even more excited. His grandparents gave him a small telescope for his birthday, and he used it to look at the stars and planets. With help from his uncle, he built bigger telescopes and became passionate about astronomy while he was still in school. He even joined a group of stargazers and shared his observations with others.

Education

David Jewitt went to local schools for his early education. He loved learning and borrowed many books to read. When he was about twelve or thirteen, a teacher introduced him to physics, which sparked his interest.

In 1976, Jewitt started his university studies at University College London. He studied astronomy, physics, mathematics, and other subjects. He enjoyed learning from a professor named Robert Boyd. In 1979, he graduated with top honors in astronomy.

He then went to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena for further studies. There, he earned a master’s degree in planetary science in 1980 and later a doctorate in planetary science and astronomy in 1983. He studied planets and comets using a large telescope at the Mount Palomar Observatory.

Career

In 1983, Jewitt started working as a teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Later, in 1988, he moved to the University of Hawaiʻi because of its strong telescopes on Mauna Kea. He worked there as a scientist and teacher.

In 2009, Jewitt joined the University of California, Los Angeles. He became a member of their science groups and a teacher. By 2010, he taught in two departments, and in 2011, he began leading a group studying planets and faraway worlds.

Research

David Jewitt studies many parts of our Solar System, like the Kuiper belt, rings around planets, and the way the Solar System formed.

In 1992, he and astronomer Jane Luu found the first object beyond Pluto and its moon Charon in the Kuiper belt. They named it 15760 Albion after a character from poet William Blake’s works. Since then, Jewitt has found many more objects in the Kuiper belt. These objects are grouped into four types based on how they move around the Sun. He also discovered a moon of Jupiter called Adrastea in 1979 and was the first to see Halley’s Comet in 1982 as it neared the Sun.

Controversies

When Pluto was first found, it was listed among the major planets. After David Jewitt and Jane Luu discovered 15760 Albion and many more objects in the Kuiper belt, it became clear that Pluto was more similar to these objects than to the other planets. Some astronomers believed Pluto should be removed from the list of planets. Jewitt thought this debate was not very important, but he agreed with the International Astronomical Union when they decided in 2006 to call Pluto a dwarf planet instead.

As telescopes and detectors improved, astronomers could find smaller and smaller moons. Some said that moons below a certain size shouldn’t be called moons. Jewitt disagreed, comparing it to saying a small dog isn’t a dog just because it’s small.

Outreach

In October 1982, Patrick Moore interviewed David Jewitt about his discovery of Halley's Comet on a special episode of BBC TV's The Sky at Night. Later, in November 1985, Jewitt talked about the comet again on another BBC show called Horizon. Many years after that, he appeared on Horizon once more to discuss asteroids.

Jewitt has also shared his work in easy-to-understand ways through articles in Scientific American, Sky and Telescope, and The Sky at Night BBC Magazine.

Honours

David Jewitt has received many awards for his important work in astronomy. In 1994, he got the University of Hawaiʻi's Regent's Medal for excellent research. In 1996, he was named Hawaii Scientist of the Year, and NASA gave him a medal for outstanding science. In 2012, he shared two big prizes—one for astronomy and one for astrophysics—with his former student Jane Luu and another scientist, Michael Brown, for discovering objects far beyond Pluto that help us learn about how our solar system formed.

Personal life

In 1991, David Jewitt met Jing Li, a student from Beijing, while she was visiting the University of Hawaiʻi. They married in 1993 and had a daughter named Suu Suu in 2000.

When he was young, Jewitt enjoyed many things besides studying space, like writing, history, music, and learning about animals and rocks. Later in life, he liked watching the old British TV show The Prisoner and listening to music by composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis. He remembers meeting Xenakis during his time at Caltech as a special memory. In 2014, Jewitt shared his hope for Earth’s future, believing that democracy and science continue to grow and improve the world.

Select bibliography

David Jewitt has written many articles for science magazines. Some of his popular articles include:

• J. Luu and D. Jewitt: The Kuiper belt; Scientific American, May 1996
• D. Jewitt, S. Sheppard and J. Kleyna: The strangest satellites in the Solar System; Scientific American, August 2006
• D. Jewitt: What else is out there?; Sky and Telescope, March 2010
• D. Jewitt: Mysterious travelers; Sky and Telescope, December 2013
• D. Jewitt and E. Young: Oceans from the skies; Scientific American, March 2015
• D. Jewitt: The Kuiper belt; The Sky at Night BBC Magazine, November 2015

You can find a full list of his more than two hundred academic papers on his website at the University of California, Los Angeles.