That Hubble Space Telescope He’s back, and NASA has the photos to prove it.
The Earth-orbiting observatory stopped on June 13 and remained that way for more than a month while engineers struggled to identify the mysterious fault. NASA hasn’t announced the exact cause of the problem, but the agency’s engineers have worked it out Bringing Hubble back to the Internet By activating some of its backup devices on Thursday.
Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA, said: Friday video interview With Nzinga Tull, who led the Hubble team during troubleshooting. “We all know this is more dangerous than we usually do.”
Hubble slowly turned on its science instruments again over the weekend and conducted system checks to make sure everything was still working. Then he took his first photo since the whole disaster began.
The telescope focused its lens on an unusual cluster of galaxies on Saturday. One of his new images shows a pair of galaxies colliding slowly. Another image shows a spiral galaxy with long arms outstretched. Most spiral galaxies have an even number of arms, but these galaxies only have three.
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The first images of the Hubble telescope after recovering from a month-long error show some unusual galaxies.
Science: NASA, ESA, STScI, Julianne Dalcanton (UW) Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Hubble also observed Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, or auroras, as well as narrow clusters of stars. NASA has yet to share images of the observations.
“I’m delighted to see that Hubble has reconsidered the universe, once again capturing the kinds of images that have intrigued and inspired us for decades,” said Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator. see press. “This is a moment to celebrate the success of a team who are truly dedicated to that mission. Through their efforts, Hubble will continue its 32nd year of discovery, and we will continue to learn from the observatory’s transformative vision.”
A mysterious bug that took a month to fix
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The Hubble Space Telescope orbits above Earth.
NASA
Hubble, the world’s most powerful space telescope, was launched into orbit in 1990. Launched taken a picture Star Birth and Death, view the new moon orbiting Pluto, and track two interstellar objects hurtling through our solar system. His observations allowed astronomers to calculate the age and expansion of the universe and to see galaxies that formed shortly after the Big Bang.
But the computer carrying the telescope’s payload suddenly stopped working on June 13. This computer, built in the 1980s, is similar to Hubble’s brain – it controls and monitors all the scientific instruments on board the spacecraft. Engineers have tried and failed to get it back online several times. Eventually, after doing more diagnostic tests, they realized that the computer wasn’t the problem at all – some other piece of hardware on the spacecraft was causing the shutdown.
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Nzinga Tull, Hubble System Anomaly Response Manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, works in the control room on July 15 to return Hubble to full science operations.
NASA GSFC / Rebecca Roth
It’s still not entirely clear which hardware is the culprit. Engineers suspect that a safety fault in the telescope’s power control unit (PCU) ordered the payload computer to shut down. The PCU may be sending the wrong voltage to the computer, or the fault lock itself may be faulty.
NASA is prepared for such a problem. Every Hubble instrument has a twin pre-installed on the telescope if it fails. So the engineers transferred all the faulty parts to those parts. Now the telescope is back in full observation mode.
“I feel so happy and relieved,” Toll said after the hardware swap. “I am happy to share the good news.”
Although this flaw has been fixed by NASA, it’s a sign that Hubble’s age may be starting to interfere with his science. The telescope has not been upgraded since 2009, and some of its instruments are more than 30 years old.
“It’s an old machine, and it tells us: Look, you’re getting a little old here, aren’t you? It speaks to us,” Zurbuchen said Friday. “However, more science lies ahead, and we’re excited about that.”
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