NASA's Swift telescope to return to Earth Wednesday after 22 years
The US Space Force expects most of NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift telescope, weighing about 2,500 pounds, to burn up when it enters the atmosphere on Wednesday, November 4, or close to that date.
The US Space Force updated its estimate for when NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift telescope will enter the atmosphere, with most of it expected to burn up on Wednesday, November 4, or close to that date.
The telescope weighs about 2,500 pounds and was launched in 2004 on a mission planned to last two years, but it operated for nearly 22 years.
During its service, the telescope observed more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and appeared in an estimated 7,000 published research papers.
The director of NASA's astrophysics division said the mission archive represents a resource that will continue to feed discoveries for decades, according to a report by Popular Science.
What do these terms mean?
Gamma rays: A form of high-energy radiation emitted by violent cosmic phenomena such as stellar explosions.
Atmosphere: The layer of gases surrounding Earth in which most objects arriving from space burn up through friction.
Astrophysics: A branch of science that studies celestial bodies and cosmic phenomena using the laws of physics.
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