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April 7, 2019 12:34 am

After 15 Years, The Humble Space Telescope Can No Longer Be Powered Up

Long-time Slashdot reader frank249 brings some news from Diana Dragomir, a Hubble Fellow at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research:Diana Dragomir tweeted that the MOST Telescope "can no longer be powered up. It's had a long life, overshooting its planned one-year lifespan by a factor of 15...!" The MOST Space Telescope (which stands for Microvariability and Oscillation of Stars) was launched into space in 2003. It was the first Canadian scientific satellite in orbit in 33 years, and it is the first space telescope to be entirely designed and built in Canada. About the size and shape of a large suitcase, the satellite weighs only 54 kilograms and is equipped with an ultra high precision telescope that measures only 15 centimetres in diameter (thus the nickname "humble space telescope"). Despite its diminutive size, it is [was?] ten times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope in detecting the minuscule variations in a star's luminosity caused by vibrations that shake its surface. Interestingly, when the Most telescope first launched back in 2003 -- it was the same long-time Slashdot reader frank249 who submitted the story.

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