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One of the four instruments on board the Hubble Space Telescope has stopped working, US space agency Nasa has said.
The STIS, or Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, was installed during the second Hubble servicing mission in 1997 and was designed to work for five years
It was used to investigate black holes, to discover dim stars that reveal clues to the age of the Universe and study the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet.
Engineers are currently trying to track down the source of the problem. [continued]
The STIS, or Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, was installed during the second Hubble servicing mission in 1997 and was designed to work for five years
Integral said:If I do a bit of arithmetic, it looks like they have gotten 7 years out of a 5yr tool...hmm.?
Let us hope that the decision is made to keep it functioning until a replacement is in place. I do not think the work it can do is complete. Does not the entire field of cosmology rely on this tool for observations? What advances can be made without it, or a replacement, in working order.Olias said:When one considers the work rate and lifespan of Earth bound functional devises..say a 'webcamera attached to a computer window's operating system'..I think the fatigue that Hubble is currently experiencing is a small price for almost perfect continuous workrate( only one small blink ) in the whole continueous existence, will need a long break soon, what are we going to do without this amazing tool?
The Large Binocular Telescope is scheduled for full operation in 2005, IIR. It will have adaptive optics that will allow it to achieve even higher resolution than one might expect from the large baseline - designed to deliver 10 times the resolution of Hubble and LOTS more light-gathering power. It will be hampered by absorbtion of some wavelengths by the atmosphere, unlike Hubble - which is still a critically-needed tool! Wonderful instruments like this can't manage to supercede one another - they enhance each other. There are some great old telescopes doing very valuable research - HST is a baby compared to many of them.Integral said:Let us hope that the decision is made to keep it functioning until a replacement is in place. I do not think the work it can do is complete. Does not the entire field of cosmology rely on this tool for observations? What advances can be made without it, or a replacement, in working order.
Integral said:Let us hope that the decision is made to keep it functioning until a replacement is in place. I do not think the work it can do is complete. Does not the entire field of cosmology rely on this tool for observations? What advances can be made without it, or a replacement, in working order.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a large, powerful space telescope that has been in orbit around Earth since 1990. It has provided scientists with invaluable observations and data about our universe, including images of distant galaxies and planets outside of our solar system.
One of the Hubble Space Telescope's instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3, experienced a hardware issue that caused it to stop functioning on January 8, 2019. This instrument is responsible for capturing high-resolution images of deep space objects, and its failure has temporarily suspended Hubble's science operations.
NASA has assembled a team of experts to investigate the cause of the instrument failure and develop a plan for repair. They are also working on alternate methods to continue Hubble's scientific observations, such as using other instruments on the telescope or utilizing ground-based telescopes.
No, the Hubble Space Telescope has experienced instrument failures in the past. In 1990, shortly after its launch, a flaw in the telescope's main mirror was discovered and had to be corrected by a space shuttle mission in 1993. Since then, there have been other instances of instrument failures, but the telescope has been successfully repaired or worked around them.
It is still uncertain whether the Hubble Space Telescope will be able to continue its mission of scientific observations. The success of the repair or alternate methods will determine if and when the telescope can resume its operations. NASA is working diligently to find a solution and hopes to have the Hubble Space Telescope back in working order as soon as possible.