Just got back up and running, the Hubble telescope has captured the image of two universes colliding

The famous observatory in Earth’s orbit was shut down on June 13 and went silent for more than a month, leaving NASA engineers scrambling to determine what mysterious error caused the problem. . Although the US space agency has so far not announced the exact cause of the problem, they managed to bring Hubble back by activating some of its backup hardware on Thursday.

” I was quite worried, ” a NASA executive named Thomas Zurbuchen told Nzinga Tull, who led the Hubble development team in the search for the cause of the problem. ” We all know this is riskier than what we usually do .”

Hubble slowly restarted its science instrumentation over the weekend and conducted a full system check to make sure everything was still working. Then, it quickly took its first pictures after a long break.

Nzinga Tull, leader of the Hubble Space Telescope repair team

By Saturday, the telescope had pointed its lens toward some rather unusual galaxies. One of the new images it took shows a pair of galaxies slowly colliding into each other. Another image shows a spiral galaxy with rather long “arms”. Most spiral galaxies have an even number of “arms”, but this galaxy only has 3 “arms”. (Picture below)

Hubble also observed plumes north and south of Jupiter, along with many densely packed constellations. NASA has yet to share any photos related to these cases.

” I am thrilled to see Hubble return to observing the universe, once again capturing images that have amazed and inspired us for decades, ” NASA chief Bill Nelson said in a press release. . ” This is a moment to celebrate the success of a group of engineers who have truly dedicated themselves to the mission. Thanks to their efforts, Hubble will continue to operate in its 32nd year, and we will continue to do so. continues to study the transformations it observes “.

Mysterious bug took a month to fix

Hubble, the world’s most powerful space telescope, was launched into orbit in 1990. It has taken pictures of the birth and death of countless stars, discovered new rotating moons. orbiting Pluto, and tracking two interstellar objects passing through their solar systems.

The pictures it took have been allowing astronomers to calculate the age and expansion of the universe, and have a look at galaxies that formed shortly after the Big Bang. .

But the telescope’s computer system suddenly stopped working on June 13. This computer system assembled in the 1980s is likened to the brain of Hubble – responsible for controlling and monitoring all the scientific equipment on the observatory. NASA engineers have repeatedly tried and failed to restart it. In the end, after running many diagnostic tests, they realized that the computer wasn’t the cause of the problem – some other hardware inside Hubble was to blame for the telescope’s shutdown.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit in 1990

As mentioned above, we still don’t know for sure which hardware is the cause. Engineers suspect that the telescope’s power control unit (PCU) has fallen into a state of failsafe, causing the computer system to shut down. That PCU seems to have miscalculated the voltage sent to the computer, or perhaps the failsafe feature itself has a problem.

NASA was obviously prepared for similar problems. Each piece of hardware on Hubble has a built-in backup copy in the event of a failure. As a result, engineers moved all the failed components to redundant hardware. And now, the Hubble telescope is back to its usual routine at 100% full efficiency.

” I feel extremely excited and relieved, ” said Tull after completing the hardware switch. ” So proud to have good news to share ”

Although NASA has fixed the error, it is still a sign that Hubble’s age has reached the point where it needs to be “retired”. This glass hasn’t been upgraded since 2019, and some of the hardware inside it is also…over 30 years old.

” This is an old machine, and it’s like it’s telling us: look, I’m getting a little older. ” – according to Zurbuchen. ” However, there is still a lot of scientific activity ahead, and we are excited about that.”

Reference: BusinessInsider