According to an article from this morning's Washington Post, the Hubble Space Telescope, producer of many of the best space images the world has seen, is now limping along without the use of its Advanced Camera for Surveys.

The project page provides some details of the ACS, which is the newest of the optical instruments on the craft (placed there in 2002) and by far the highest definition.

The article indicates that the problem is yet to be completely diagnosed and could be solved by a relatively simple reloading of memory, or it could be more complex. However, there are backups in the craft that have yet to be tried, so a solution that doesn't require visiting the HST is still possible.