The newest, most high-tech camera on the Hubble space telescope stopped working last weekend and two of its main capabilities - gaining ultra deep views of the universe and detailed data on individual stars - are unlikely to recover, Nasa officials said today.
The failure, described as a"great loss" by scientists, occurred when the telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys, which photographs huge expanses of sky, shut down after a fuse failed as a result of a short circuit.
Two of the instrument's three channels - its wide field and high-resolution channels - were unlikely to be restored, engineers said.
The ACS has taken the clearest pictures ever seen of the cosmos, but will only be fully functioning again when Hubble receives a new camera during a planned servicing mission by space shuttle in 2008.
"Science will continue, but it's a great loss, no doubt," Mario Livio, of the Space Telescope Science Institute which manages Hubble, said.
"This was a fantastic camera that just produced incredible science." The ACS has been the most in-demand instrument on Hubble since it was installed in 2002.
It consists of three sub-cameras that detect and filter light, from the ultra-violet to the near infra-red.
