PhD Student Sam Cutler Shares Experience with Hubble Telescope

Content

On April 24, 1990, Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center, carrying a groundbreaking payload: the Hubble Space Telescope—one of the most ambitious scientific instruments ever created.

Hubble was designed to transform our understanding of the universe. Despite an early setback, the telescope has exceeded expectations over the past 35 years, revolutionizing astronomy and reshaping humanity’s view of the cosmos.

In a recent Discover Magazine article, young astronomers weigh in on this "vital part of modern astrophysics." This includes Sam Cutler, a PhD student in the College of Natural Sciences's Department of Astronomy, who has worked extensively with Hubble data.

"Sam Cutler, a PhD student in astronomy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has worked with Hubble data throughout his academic career, even contributing to the telescope’s widest near-infrared (NIR) image of the universe. That image was made possible by a clever and innovative technique called Drift And SHift (DASH), which dramatically boosts the telescope’s data collection rate.

"'The most surprising thing about being a part of this imaging,' Cutler says, 'was how, even 30+ years after launch, we were still learning new ways to utilize Hubble to expand our understanding of the Universe. […] It was a lot of fun to share these results and pitch it as, we can teach this old dog new tricks.'"

— Discover Magazine

Click here to read the full article in Discover Magazine.