Farewell, Swift! NASA Retires Legendary Space Explorer

For over two decades, NASA's Swift Observatory flew around Earth like a cosmic emergency responder. Whenever massive stars collapsed in the far reaches of the universe, they unleashed blinding flashes of energy called gamma-ray bursts. Swift was designed to spin around immediately and capture snapshots of the cosmic fireworks before they vanished.

Recently, the aging telescope started drifting and losing altitude. To keep it operating, NASA hoped to give it a helping hand. A private rescue satellite traveled up to rendezvous with Swift in orbit, much like a tow truck trying to hook onto a broken-down car on a very fast highway.