Brightest quasar ever discovered by Hubble Space Telescope and one of its cameras is broken

CNN — One of the premier cameras on the Hubble Space Telescope is no longer working and NASA has shut it down while the issue is investigated. NASA called the quasar, which emits light equivalent to 600 trillion suns, “the brightest object ever seen at a time when the universe was less than one billion years old.” Lead investigator Xiaohui Fan, from the University of Arizona, said in a news release: “We don’t expect to find many quasars brighter than that in the whole observable universe.” The Wide Field Camera 3, or WFC3, which was installed in 2009, reported an error on Tuesday and its operations were suspended. “Hubble will continue to perform science observations with its other three active instruments, while the Wide Field Camera 3 anomaly is investigated,” reads a statement from NASA. Tom Brown, the Hubble mission head at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said teams are busy troubleshooting the issue and a reboot to the system might be an option as a fix. “That’s why redundant systems are installed.” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, took to Twitter to share an update: “This is when everyone gets a reminder about two crucial aspects of space exploration: 1) complex systems like @NASAHubble only work due to a dedicated team of amazing experts; 2) all space systems have finite life-times and such issues are bound to happen from time to time.” This is when everyone gets a reminder about two crucial aspects of space exploration: 1) complex systems like @NASAHubble only work due to a dedicated team of amazing experts; 2) all space systems have finite life-times and such issues are bound to happen from time to time🤞🛰🌌 https://t.co/1Bd0NcmVVW — Thomas Zurbuchen January 9, 2019 Brown said he is confident the issue will be resolved in the next week or two.