In a month, NASA will repair Hubble and continue scientific findings – Technology News, Firstpost

FP trendsJuly 21, 2021 10:48:03 AMT

After nearly a month of inactivity, NASA has finally succeeded in restarting scientific instruments with the Hubble Space Telescope on July 17th. The telescope has now returned to its operational state, and the space telescope has also shared images of unusual galaxies as proof that it is working.

The Hubble Space Telescope will be shipped on April 25, 1990 from the space shuttle Discovery. To avoid atmospheric distortions, Hubble has an unobstructed view of planets, stars, and galaxies more than 13.4 billion light-years away.
Scope: NASA / Smithsonian Institution / Lockheed Corporation

NASA administrator Bill Nelson reacted to the development, saying he was excited to see that the Hubble Eye has returned to the universe. Insisting that the team is responsible for Hubbles ’success, Nelson added that the space telescope has completed 32 years of space exploration, as mentioned on the NASA blog.

“Hubble is an icon, which gives us an incredible insight into space over the last three decades, ”he added. “I am proud of the current members of the Hubble team to the Hubble alumni who stepped in to provide support and expertise.”

Problem

Nearly a month ago, on June 13, the Hubble computer stopped working. It is responsible for supervising and coordinating the scientific instruments on board. Hubble’s scientific instruments were placed in safe mode when the host computer could not receive a signal from the payload computer.

Although experts analyzed the situation, the Hubble Telescope was unable to perform the tasks. To repair the telescope, the Hubble Alumni Group returned to help the current team.

Nzinga Tull, director of anomalies in Hubble systems, said of the situation that the programs that have been running for more than three decades have the advantage of having an incredible amount of experience and expertise. Tull added that the experience has been humble and inspiring.

Both the old and new teams found together that the problem was with the power management unit. The group’s efforts were successful late in the evening of July 15, and the Hubble Telescope was put back into service from July 17.

Not for the first time

In 2008, the Hubble team is rely on backup devices and made a similar transition to restore Hubble to regular operations after part of the Science Instrument and Command & Data Handling unit failed. During Hubble’s last service visit in 2009, they replaced the complete equipment and significantly extended its service life.

“Hubble is in good hands. The Hubble team has once again demonstrated its ability and ability to combat the inevitable anomalies caused by the use of the world’s most famous telescope in space. ” said Kenneth Sembach, Director of the Space Telescope Research Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, who performs Hubble Science activities.

These images of a program led by Julianne Dalcanton at the University of Washington in Seattle show Hubble’s return to complete science. [Left] ARP-MADORE2115-273 is a rarely observed example of interacting galaxy pairs in the southern hemisphere. [Right] ARP-MADORE0002-503 is a large spiral galaxy with unusual, expanded spiral arms. While most disk galaxies have an even number of spiral arms, this one has three.
Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, STScI, Julianne Dalcanton (UW) Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Back to work

July 19 Hubble shared new photos from space. It shared two images of galaxies – one with curves and the other with a couple of colliding galaxies. Other targets in the telescope were spherical constellations and auroras on the giant planet Jupiter. These images were obtained from a program at the University of Washington in Seattle by Julianne Dalcanton.

NASA has been monitoring the night sky for more than 31 years and believes Hubble will continue its work “for many more years and continue groundbreaking observations.” Hubble data has been used to publish more than 18,000 scientific publications and has taken more than 1.5 million observations from the universe. The team believes Hubble will continue to make new discoveries with its other telescopes, including the soon-to-be-launched James Webb telescope.