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These four images sample the many objects that Chandra and Swift have both observed over the course of their missions. (NASA\/CXC\/SAO et al. via SWNS)<\/p>\n
By Dean Murray<\/p>\n
A doomed spacecraft set to plunge to Earth in weeks has shared new cosmic images<\/a>.<\/p>\n NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory<\/a> was launched in 2004 to detect and monitor gamma-ray bursts, but after 21 years of science operations, its low-Earth orbit began to rapidly decay because of increased solar activity.<\/p>\n A daring mission to catch and lift NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to a higher orbit failed over the summer.<\/p>\n Currently located around 200 miles above Earth, NASA says Swift is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere later this year, potentially around November.<\/p>\n (NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/ ESA et al. via SWNS)<\/p>\n By Talker<\/p>\n The 1,470 kg, 5.6 m-high observatory will most likely break up and largely burn up, but NASA has not publicly confirmed whether debris will reach Earth.<\/p>\n NASA said on Thursday, Oct. 9, that the new image collection<\/a> is just a sample of the many cosmic objects that Swift and the Chandra X-ray Observatory<\/a> have observed together in the pursuit of learning more about the mysteries of space.<\/p>\n They include the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), one of the Milky Way’s<\/a> closest galactic neighbors at a distance of about 200,000 light-years from Earth, as well as NGC 1097, a spiral galaxy about 48 million light-years from Earth that contains a supermassive black hole about 140 million times more massive than our Sun.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n