Enlarge / The string of red dots represents the area of maximum magnification, with the location of Earendel indicated by the white arrow. (credit: NASA, ESA, Brian Welch (JHU), Dan Coe (STScI) ) We don’t fully understand what the Universe’s first stars looked like. We know they must have formed from hydrogen and helium since […]
Enlarge / Hubble Space Telescope above Earth, photographed during STS-125, Servicing Mission 4, May 2009. (credit: NASA) Earlier this month, NASA announced that the scientific instruments aboard the Hubble Space Telescope had been left in safe mode after a series of problems with the timing signals that coordinate their activity. While NASA is still uncertain […]
Enlarge / Hubble Space Telescope above Earth, photographed during STS-125, Servicing Mission 4, May 2009. (credit: NASA) On Monday, NASA announced that the Hubble Space Telescope’s science instruments were in an extended shutdown after problems appeared in late October. The issues arose as failed internal communications caused the science instruments to switch into safe mode […]
Enlarge (credit: NASA) On June 13, the Hubble Space Telescope took itself offline due to a fault in its payload computer, which manages its scientific instruments. Since then, NASA has been doing the sort of troubleshooting that might be familiar to many of us—with the added twist that the hardware is irreplaceable, in space, and […]
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of the Earth-sized planet and its atmosphere. (credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Hurt (IPAC/Caltech)) The atmosphere most planets start with is often not the same as the one they end up with. Most of the gas present at the formation of a solar system will be hydrogen and helium. But a […]