NASA’s on-site repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope may have fallen through until next year, but luckily NASA engineers have figured out a way to fix the Hubble remotely. Which means we could soon be getting more stunning images like this one, of Comet Holmes. More details, and a few of our favorite recent Hubble images, below the fold.
NASA thinks it can restart a back-up data-handling system on Hubble that hasn’t been used since the telescope launched in 1990. The telescope’s data will be re-routed to that system, and the telescope could start relaying images as soon as Friday. Early tomorrow, NASA scientists will put Hubble into “safe” mode for the sixth time in 18 years, and send hundreds of lines of complicated code up to the telescope. [Hubblesite and AP]
