Almost 22 years after it was launched, NASA's Swift Observatory is now about to fall back to Earth on Wednesday after attempts to push it back into a higher orbit failed. NASA announced that the aging space telescope is anticipated to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at approximately 3: 30 AM ET (give or take 11 hours), and that it expects most of the spacecraft to burn up, but some components will likely survive re-entry.
The observatory weighs around 3, 200 pounds and measures in at 5. 6 meters (18. 4 feet) high and 5. 4 meters (17. 7 feet) wide, though much of the latter includes its deployable solar arrays. The risk of surviving components causing … Read the full story at The Verge.