The venerable Hubble Space Telescope is recovering from a glitch that halted its science operations over the weekend, according to NASA.
The telescope entered “safe mode” unexpectedly on Sunday morning (March 7), stalling the observatory’s science observations due to an apparent software glitch. Science operations resumed late Thursday (March 11). While Hubble is partially back to work, NASA is still troubleshooting one instrument on the 30-year-old telescope, according to a statement released on Friday (Mar. 12).
“The telescope has completed its first observation since returning to science mode, using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph instrument to map gas flows in active galactic nuclei,” NASA officials wrote in the statement. “Wide Field Camera 3 remains suspended while the team investigates a low-voltage issue that prevented it from returning to operations.” The Wide Field Camera 3, or WFC3, was installed in 2009 during NASA’s final servicing mission to Hubble by astronauts.
