(Washington) The Hubble Space Telescope, which has revolutionized astronomy since its launch in 1990, will be phased out as its observing hours decline, NASA officials announced Tuesday.
One of the three gyroscopes that control the direction the telescope is pointed has experienced stability issues in recent months.
“After a series of tests and careful consideration of our options, we made the decision to have Hubble use only one of its three remaining gyroscopes,” said Mark Clampin, chair of the Department of Astrophysics. from NASA.
Over the next 12 months, the telescope will still be able to observe the entire starry sky, but will no longer be able to track objects closer than Mars – even though such objects are rare anyway – it said. Patrick Crouse.
“We do not believe that Hubble is in its final stages,” he said.
NASA estimates the probability that Hubble will operate in this configuration until 2035 is 70%.
Perhaps one of the most important instruments in human history, Hubble continues to make important discoveries such as in 2022, when the telescope detected Earendel: the most distant star ever observed.
According to Mark Clampin, despite its reduced capacities, Hubble continues to investigate objects in our solar system, to study certain distant galaxies, or to collaborate with the James Webb space telescope (launched in 2021) to examine the atmospheres of exoplanets.
James Webb excels at infrared detection, while Hubble focuses on visible light – providing a complementary duo for scientific observation.