The aging Hubble Space Telescope has had a rough year, with two major instances of the telescope being unable to conduct science operations. NASA confirmed this week that Hubble has returned to full science operations with all four active instruments collecting science data. The orbiting observatory went into safe mode when instruments recorded synchronization message issues.
It's been something of a rough month for the Hubble Space Telescope. Toward the end of October, NASA detected that Hubble's science instruments had lost synchronization and automatically entered safe mode - a problem it reported on November 1st. Throughout the rest of the month, NASA has been exploring the issue and bringing those instruments out of safe mode one by one. Today, the organization announced that one more tool has been taken out of safe mode, meaning Hubble is one step closer to being fully functional again.
NASA has announced that it is continuing to work to bring the Hubble Space Telescope completely online and back to normal science operations. The agency confirmed the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument was successfully recovered on Sunday, November 21. NASA plans to conduct the first science observations using the recovered Wide Field Camera 3 today, November 23.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a joint project between NASA and the ESA. Teams operating the telescope have announced that it completed its annual tour of the outer solar system. The outer solar system is the realm of massive planets much larger than Earth, including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
The last few months have been challenging for the Hubble Space Telescope and the team of scientists and engineers overseeing the iconic observatory. NASA has confirmed that it has successfully recovered the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument aboard the Hubble as of November 7. As of that date, the instrument has begun making science observations again. However, the other instruments aboard Hubble remain in safe mode.
NASA and the ESA have been operating the Hubble Space Telescope for a long time, and they have a long history of sharing special images to celebrate holidays. With Halloween happening this weekend, the ESA has shared that image of a carbon star called CW Leonis. The image below shows the star glowing in dark orange, green, and yellow colors.
Our solar system has a lot of interesting planets and moons. One of the most interesting objects in the solar system is a moon orbiting the gas giant Jupiter, called Europa. Previously, the Hubble Space Telescope found water vapor in the atmosphere of one of Jupiter's moons called Ganymede. Now Hubble has discovered persistent water vapor in the atmosphere of another moon orbiting Jupiter, this time Europa.
Scientists utilize a technique called gravitational lensing to study galaxies and other celestial bodies that are too far away to observe directly. Gravitational lensing occurs when the light produced by a distant galaxy is magnified by intense gravity from another galaxy directly in front of it. Gravitational lensing produces multiple, stretched, and brightened images of the background galaxy.
One of the most iconic features of Jupiter is its iconic Great Red Spot. That feature is a massive storm that's been going on for centuries. Observations made using the Hubble Space Telescope have determined that wind speeds inside that massive storm have increased.
The image shown below was taken by the ESA/Hubble team in December 2020. The image shows the most complete Einstein Ring ever discovered. The discovery of the Einstein Ring enabled scientists to develop a lensing model allowing the study of the physical properties of the lensed galaxy.
Astronomers made new discoveries that challenge some old notions about white dwarfs. Astronomers have used new data gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope to determine that white dwarfs may continue to burn hydrogen in the final stages of their lives. By burning hydrogen in the latter stages of their lives, white dwarfs may appear to be more youthful when viewed than they are.
Everyone was unsure if the iconic Hubble Space Telescope would ever get back to work for a long time. Hubble experienced a hardware failure that prevented the space telescope from conducting scientific operations. The good news is that NASA was eventually able to sort the problem and get the telescope back up and running normally.