NASA’s Swift space telescope re-enters Earth’s atmosphere after 22 years

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a roughly 3,200-pound space telescope launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts and other cosmic explosions, was expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere early Wednesday, Nov. 4, according to the U.S. Space Force and NASA.

Science operations ended in late October after the spacecraft’s orbit fell below about 171 miles (275 kilometers). A robotic rescue mission aimed at boosting Swift into a higher orbit was abandoned in August after the rescue craft failed, Reuters reported. NASA said most of the satellite was expected to burn up, with a roughly 1-in-2,100 chance that surviving debris would harm anyone on Earth. Scientific American reported that by Wednesday morning there were no confirmed public sightings of the re-entry, suggesting it may have fallen over open ocean.

Source: NASA’s Swift Observatory to Re-Enter Atmosphere; Reuters; Scientific American