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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.
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