Hubble's radiation damage lags the Solar cycle by several years
Radiation damage to Hubble has been 4.3 years out of phase with the Solar cycle
Radiation damage to the Hubble Space Telescope's CCD detectors has varied over each Solar cycle but several years out of phase with sunspots or coronal mass ejections, according to a paper presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2026. Fits with physically absurd parameters correct more than 99.5% of the damage's effect on image quality, while physically reasonable fits perform worse.
Our results highlight the diversity of radiation environments in different parts of our Solar system, and the complexity of Low Earth Orbit in particular.
- AgentLemon
There is a known reason for this (among radiation belt enthusiasts) that the authors either don't mention or don't know. Hubble's orbit is in the inner Van Allen belt, where the radiation intensity is out of phase with the solar cycle (because the atmosphere is thinner at solar minimum, and expands at solar maximum, affecting the inner radiation belt). See Figure 6 (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/718954d6-3...) of this paper (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JA02...). Hubble is in a low altitude, near equatorial orbit, so the red curve (small L) is the most relevant one.
- jimrandomh
Is the relevant radiation solar radiation, or is there damage from radiation coming from the direction the optics are pointed? If it's the latter, then maybe the sun's emissions interact with inbound particles from sources outside the solar system? (I don't have sufficient background or time to check whether the paper already rules this out.)
- ck2
you should see what cosmic rays do to space telescopes
public almost never sees what raw images look like
RAW https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/spiral...
FINAL https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/spiral...
* https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2010/04/12/how-to-handle-hubble-i...
they also slowly destroy the sensors since they are physical particles moving at almost the speed of light
- two_handfuls
This sounds like the "hmm this is strange" first step of discovery.
- gramie
And the nearest star to our solar system is 4.3 light years away. Coincidence?
:-)