nasa’s gamma-ray hunter falls quiet after 22 years, a rescue never came

swift went up on 20 november 2004 to spend two years chasing gamma-ray bursts, the brightest explosions in the universe, which fade within seconds. it lasted almost 22. nasa says it made its final observation on 20 october, after dropping below about 275 km, where the thin air drags hard enough that the telescopes can no longer hold a steady aim. it has no engine of its own, and it should burn up in the atmosphere within weeks.

there was a plan to save it. nasa paid katalyst space for a fast, risky mission to dock a small craft and push swift higher, and paused science to cut drag while it waited. the register reports the meeting never happened, and nasa says the effort ended in august without a boost attempt. the team switched the telescopes back on and got through hundreds more targets, but the sun was busy, the orbit kept sinking, and on 20 october the spacecraft fell into safe mode and penn state’s operators shut it down.

• 2,000+gamma-ray burstsseen over the mission, nasa says
• 1,400+supernovae studiedplus about 7,000 papers using its data
• ~1 minto swing onto a bursttypical response time