research
Hubble’s Damage Clock Lagged the Sun
Twenty-four years of detector damage tracked the solar cycle several years out of phase, resisting a tidy physical fit.
Summary
Twenty-four years of detector damage tracked the solar cycle several years out of phase, resisting a tidy physical fit.
Hubble’s CCDs act as long-running radiation dosimeters in low Earth orbit. Empirical functions can correct more than 99.5 percent of the image-quality effect, but the most accurate fits require physically implausible parameters; realistic parameter choices fit worse. The mismatch highlights how local radiation environments complicate forecasts of spacecraft degradation and useful life.
Why it matters
Twenty-four years of detector damage tracked the solar cycle several years out of phase, resisting a tidy physical fit.
Limits and context
No additional limitation was separately recorded.
Key claims
Twenty-four years of detector damage tracked the solar cycle several years out of phase, resisting a tidy physical fit.
Evidence: source-2026-08-20-011
Sources
- arXiv preprint 2608.18214arXiv · primary research
Corrections
No corrections have been recorded for this story.