The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has awarded University of Arizona Steward Observatory astronomers the 2003 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize and the 2003 Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation.

Xiaohui Fan, assistant professor of astronomy, has won the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize for 2003 "for his systematic discovery of high redshift quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey," according to his citation. "The quasars are the best probe to date of the epoch of the formation of the first objects in the universe; their discovery enabled identification of the end of the epoch of re-ionization."

Fan headed the Sloan Digital Sky Survey team that announced the discovery of three of the four oldest known quasars at last week's AAS annual meeting in Seattle. The quasars are about 13 billion light years away and reach back to a time when the universe was just 800 million years old.

The Pierce Prize is normally awarded annually for outstanding achievement, over the past five years, in observational astronomical research based on measurements of radiation from an astronomical object. It is given to an astronomer who is younger than 36 years old in the year designated for the award.

During the past five years, Fan has been working with other members of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in observations of 30,000 quasars, or a third of the total 100,000 quasars they intend to survey.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey will map in detail one-quarter of the entire sky, determining the positions and absolute brightness of 100 million celestial objects. It will also measure the distances to more than a million galaxies and quasars.

Fan, who joined the UA faculty last year, earned his doctorate in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University in 2000. He earned his 1995 master's degree at Beijing Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, and his bachelor of science degree from Nanjing University, China, in 1992.

The AAS selected Frank J. Low as recipient of the 2003 Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation. He received the AAS Helen B. Warner Prize in 1968. Low is Regents Professor Emeritus in the UA Steward Observatory.

The Weber award, which was given for the first time last year, goes to an individual without restriction to citizenship or country of residency "for the design, invention or significant improvement of instrumentation leading to advances in astronomy."

Low is being cited for "extraordinary ingenuity in the development of infrared instrumentation and observatories, including bolometers, the Lear Jet and Kuiper Airborne observatories, and the IRAS and SIRTF space missions."

Low has been described as the father of modern infrared astronomy because he developed a low temperature bolometer that enabled many astronomers to observe throughout the vast infrared spectrum. Using a NASA Learjet, Low figured out how to fly his telescope high in the Earth's stratosphere without using a window. This led to NASA's much larger airborne astronomy facility, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, which further enabled infrared astronomy at wavelengths unreachable from the ground.

Low proposed and was a primary organizer of the joint American-British-Dutch Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS), the first infrared satellite, flown in 1983. The IRAS survey of the cosmos yielded new discoveries ranging from new features of our own solar system to the most distant objects in the universe. Low developed and produced very low noise super-cooled amplifiers for use in space missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), to be launched this year, depends on Low's radically new ultra-low temperature cooling system designed to extend the lifetime of the mission from only a few months to several years.

Low is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is also president and founder of Infrared Laboratories, Inc. He earned his bachelor's degree in physics from Yale University in 1955, and his 1957 master's degree and 1959 doctorate from Rice University. He joined the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in 1962, the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory as research professor in 1965, and became research professor at Steward Observatory in 1971. He became Regents' Research Professor at the Steward Observatory in 1988, and Regents' Professor Emeritus in 1996.

Established 1899, AAS is the major professional organization in North America for astronomers, other scientists and individuals interested in astronomy.

Contact Information

• Xiaohui Fan
• 520-626-7558 fan@as.arizona.edu
• http://sancerre.as.arizona.edu/~fan/

• Frank J. Low
• 520-621-2727
• flow@as.arizona.edu