After briefly going offline, NASA’s Chandra X-ray space telescope is back in action
After briefly going into safe mode last week, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory — which observes galaxies and nebulas from Earth’s orbit — should be getting back to normal operations soon. The cause of the disruption was a small glitch in one of the spacecraft’s instruments used for steering and pointing. But the space agency has since fixed the problem, and the telescope will be back to observing the Universe by the end of the week.
Launched in 1999, Chandra has been in operation for nearly two decades, observing X-ray light coming from the most heated gases in the Universe. Everything from exploding stars to the super heated material churning around a black hole can give off X-rays that Chandra can pick up. The telescope is credited...