NASA's Swift telescope burns up over Indonesia

A NASA telescope that spent 22 years watching the universe's most violent explosions just fell out of the sky. Swift came down over North Sumatra, Indonesia, at 7:39 a.m. ET on Nov. 4, the U.S. Space Force confirmed. It launched in 2004 to catch gamma-ray bursts, brief flashes from dying stars and black holes. NASA tried to rescue it earlier this year. That attempt failed.

Swift was never built to last this long. Most of its roughly 3,200 pounds likely burned up on the way down, and no debris reports have surfaced. The failed rescue attempt matters beyond this one telescope. NASA still flies Hubble, a bigger, far more famous space telescope that will eventually face its own reentry. Swift is a preview of how that story could end.

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Will NASA find a way to save Hubble when its time comes, or just watch it fall like Swift? Swift's ending shows that even when NASA tries to intervene, an aging satellite can still be lost.