Since it was first launched into space in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has become something of a household name. Over the course of its almost thirty years of service, Hubble has established a reputation as one of NASA’s Great Observatories, giving astronomers the ability to look farther into the cosmic field than ever before and learn new and fascinating things about our Universe.
It was therefore a bit of a scare then when NASA announced earlier this month that one of Hubble’s gyroscopes (gyros) had failed, causing it to go into safe mode. But on Oct. 26th, after a considerable effort on behalf of the operations team, NASA announced that the venerable Hubble had been restored to working order. As we speak, it is collecting science data and carrying on in the tradition it helped establish.