Guggenheim Fellow Focuses on the Fringe

More than 50 years ago, scientists pointed radio telescopes to the sky and found light from objects so distant that they appeared as faint stars, barely detectable. Today we know them as quasars—quasi-stellar-radio-sources—the oldest known galaxies, pulsing with energy from powerful black holes devouring as many as a thousand suns per year. Most are at the fringes of our expanding universe—up to 13 billion light years away—and may hold the key to understanding its earliest eras. Ready to turn that key stands the UA’s Dr. Xiaohui Fan, a global leader in studying these celestial Rosetta stones and the only astronomer to win a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship award.