Science

The Hubble Space Telescope is Operational Again

Hubble is back and better than ever, as the Hubble Space Telescope is fully operational again following a defect that took its instruments offline. NASA’s Hubble team announced on Tuesday (Dec. 7) that they’ve recovered the observatory’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, the final of the telescope’s instruments that went offline after the recent problems.

“The team will continue work on developing and testing changes to instrument software that would allow them to conduct science operations even if they encounter several lost synchronization messages in the future,” NASA said in a statement.

Starting in late October, Hubble noticed a problem with the synchronization of its internal communications. The problem resulted in all four of the scope’s science instruments going offline, making Hubble non-operational. The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) was operational again by Tuesday, enabling the instruments to come back online. The other four instruments are in a “safe mode” for protection.

In other news, the James Webb Space Telescope will soon join Hubble in outer space. The new telescope is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

“With the launch of the Webb Telescope planned for later this month, NASA expects the two observatories will work together well into this decade, expanding our knowledge of the cosmos even further,” NASA said.

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