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Hubble Camera Lost "For Good"
Several readers wrote in to tell us, following up on the recent story of the shutting down of Hubble's main camera, that program engineers are now saying that the camera is probably gone for good. The trouble resulted from a short circuit on Saturday in Hubble's most popular instrument, the Advanced Camera for Surveys. NASA engineers reported Monday that most of the camera's capabilities, including the ability to take the sort of deep cosmic postcards that have inspired the public, had probably been lost. We'll be pining for more of those amazing images until the James Webb launches in 2013.
Update: 01/30 23:28 GMT by KD : Reader Involved astronomer wrote in with an addendum / clarification to this story: "I'm a grant-funded astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (www.stsci.edu) in Baltimore. I am very concerned that the article conveys the wrong idea about HST. While HST's science capacity is diminished with the loss of ACS, HST lives on and will continue to produce world-class science, even before its servicing mission in Sept. 2008, which will upgrade the instrument suite with the most sophisticated imagers in history." Read on for the rest of his note. I'd like to point out these facts:
You can view one of our press releases on this here: http://hubblesite.org/acs/.
Update: 01/30 23:28 GMT by KD : Reader Involved astronomer wrote in with an addendum / clarification to this story: "I'm a grant-funded astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (www.stsci.edu) in Baltimore. I am very concerned that the article conveys the wrong idea about HST. While HST's science capacity is diminished with the loss of ACS, HST lives on and will continue to produce world-class science, even before its servicing mission in Sept. 2008, which will upgrade the instrument suite with the most sophisticated imagers in history." Read on for the rest of his note. I'd like to point out these facts:
- A fuse blew on ACS side two electronics — This will LIKELY (we're not 100% sure yet) render the Wide-field channel and the High-resolution channel (e.g. 2/3rds of the camera) inoperable. The solar blind channel will likely be returned to operation.
- While we have lost (2/3rds) of ACS, NICMOS and WFPC2, two fantastic imagers, are still operational. WFPC2 is responsible for many of the gorgeous images that grace many of your desktop wallpapers.
- ACS had an expected lifetime of 5 years. It met that lifetime. The loss of ACS, while of course disappointing, is not necessarily a shock.
- Servicing mission 4 is currently scheduled for Sept. 2008. It will upgrade HST to never-before-seen scientific capability and productivity. The Wide-Field Camera 3, which will be installed then, will essentially be an even more sophisticated successor to ACS.
You can view one of our press releases on this here: http://hubblesite.org/acs/.
We'll be pining for more of those amazing images until the James Webb launches in 2013.
Will those images be of the fjords?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
while. I'd always post the latest Hubble image as my desktop wallpaper. I'm sure many other people did this too.
You mean this one?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
well, can't they postpone *Do Gerbils Crap Spheres In Zero G?* experiments until a later launch?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
"We'll be pining for more of those amazing images until the James Webb launches in 2013. "
That gives me a thought - has anyone checked to see if maybe the Hubble camera's not dead and is just pining for the fjords?
Now we'll never know if ants can sort tiny screws in space!
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Mike broke the Hubble! Mike broke the Hubble!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I know. These images suck from the Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope.
There is absolutely no way that we can extrapolate any color from those images.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Too bad, I just know Ben Affleck could pull it off.
Bonus points for dying in the attempt.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Man oh man, they should have used a circuit breaker instead of a fuse. I'd hate to get up there with a bag of those little fuses and find out I had to go back to the service station for the right one.
Brannigan: "What the hell is that thing?"
Kif: "It appears to be the mothership"
Brannigan: "Then what did we just blow up?"
Kif: "The Hubble Telescope"
Have any other strong and uninformed opinions to share on matters of importance?
I knew it! We should have purchased the extended service agreement. Just as the warranty runs out it breaks.