NASA's Swift telescope ends more than 20 years of research and will soon burn up

The telescope is ending its mission

NASA says Swift has stopped doing science. It now flies less than 275 kilometers above Earth's surface. Air resistance in the upper atmosphere has slowed it down. This made it hard for the telescope to keep aiming at space objects steadily. Its last science data was collected on October 20. Swift is expected to crash back to Earth within weeks.

Key facts

• Swift has orbited Earth since 2004.
• It was designed for a two-year main mission. It worked more than ten times that long.
• It studied more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and over 1,400 supernovae.
• Data from its instruments helped produce about 7,000 scientific papers.
• The full data set is about 12 terabytes.

A failed rescue try

Swift was named in 2018 after its late lead scientist, Neil Gehrels. It was built to find gamma-ray bursts, which are very bright explosions in space. Its main value was as an early warning system. It could quickly alert telescopes on Earth so they could study these explosions. Because the telescope was losing height, the US company Katalyst built and launched a spacecraft in record time. It was meant to push Swift to a higher orbit. The rescue never got to the attempt stage, and the failure was announced in August.

Why it matters

Swift was special because it could point at new targets very fast. Other telescopes often needed much longer. Its quick alerts helped scientists watch some of the biggest explosions in the universe. Its many discoveries and data will keep helping researchers for years to come.

What to watch

• When and where Swift falls back into the atmosphere.
• Whether any parts survive the fall to reach the ground.
• How scientists use Swift's full data set of about 12 terabytes.