An instrument aboard the international Cassini spacecraft is making measurements again after nine months offline.
NASA said on Monday that the plasma spectrometer, which measures the energy of electrons and protons, is back in business after engineers spent months troubleshooting the problem.
The instrument was turned off as a precaution last June after Cassini experienced fluctuating voltage. The spacecraft used its other instruments to study Saturn and its many moons even with the spectrometer out of service.
An investigation pointed to "tin whiskers" growing on electronic components as the culprit, causing a short. NASA says these tiny metal filaments, thinner tha the diameter of a human hair, can grow in space just as they do on Earth.
Scienitists believe that the whiskers growing on Cassini's circuitry cannot carry enough current to cause long-lasting problems, and that they burn out on their own like a lightweight fuse.
Launched in 1997, Cassini has been exploring the Saturnian system since 2008.
This report was supplemented by msnbc.com.
