NASA’s Swift Observatory, a gamma-ray-hunting telescope that spent two decades watching the universe’s most violent explosions, is expected to fall from orbit within hours.
\n\nThe Daily Mail reports that the 3,200-pound spacecraft is predicted to reenter Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday mid morning, according to NASA tracking. The agency’s map of possible reentry paths spans Central and South America, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, northern Australia, and stretches of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. Any surviving fragments would likely land somewhere within a broad equatorial band covering Latin America, Africa, southern Asia and northern Australia. The United States and Europe sit outside that zone.
\n\n“Re-entry locations of any surviving components can vary from hemisphere to hemisphere and depend on when it re-enters,” NASA said in a statement.
\n\nSwift launched in 2004 with a prime mission meant to last just two years. It ended up running for 21, scanning the sky for gamma-ray bursts and other short-lived cosmic events, until increased solar activity started dragging its low Earth orbit down faster than expected.
\n\n“We’ve known this day would come since before Swift was launched,” said John Nousek, a Pennsylvania State University astronomer who worked on the mission. “At least in low-Earth…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/
