Doomed 3,200-pound NASA telescope to crash back to Earth tomorrow as map reveals possible impact zones

READ MORE: I worked with NASA. UFO disclosure will finally happen... but it's not coming from the White House Published: 11:50 EDT, 3 November 2026 | Updated: 11:51 EDT, 3 November 2026 NASA has announced that its decommissioned space telescope is set to make a fiery re-entry on Wednesday, warning that some components are expected to survive.The 3,200-pound Swift Observatory launched in 2004 to study gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe, and other cosmic objects and events. It was designed for a two-year prime mission.After 21 years of science operations, Swift’s low Earth orbit began to rapidly decay because of increased solar activity.NASA is tracking the telescope as it moves closer to Earth, suggesting it will make an uncontrolled plummet through the atmosphere at 3.30am ET, with an uncertainty of 11 hours.'Re-entry locations of any surviving components can vary from hemisphere to hemisphere and depend on when it re-enters,' NASA shared in a statement. A tracking map shows Swift’s orbital paths crisscrossing a broad belt around the equator, passing over parts of Central and South America, Africa and southern Asia, as well as vast stretches of ocean.The map does not pinpoint where wreckage will strike, as the location of any surviving debris depends on exactly when the spacecraft plunges into the atmosphere. The yellow and blue lines trace the telescope’s repeated passes around Earth. The map does not pinpoint where wreckage will strikePennsylvania State University’s John Nousek, an astronomer involved in the mission, told AP: 'We’ve known this day would come since before Swift was launched. 'At least in low-Earth orbit, what goes up must come down. And that end is catastrophic.'The space agency's press release explained that surviving fragments could fall within a broad belt around the equator stretching across parts of Latin America, Africa, southern Asia and northern Australia.That places the US and Europe outside the potential impact zone. The re-entry follows NASA's failed attempt to rescue Swift in August.The space agency had spent $30 million in hopes of sending another spacecraft to push the telescope into a higher orbit and avoid an uncontrolled fall back to Earth. The rescue spacecraft, named Link, went into an uncontrollable spin a few weeks after its liftoff in early July.While flight controllers managed to slow Link’s tumble, issues continued to plague its pointing and positioning in orbit. NASA is tracking the telescope as it moves closer to Earth, suggesting it will make an uncontrolled plummet through the atmosphere at 3.30am ET, with an uncertainty of 11 hours Swift Observatory captured the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst. The bright rings are X-rays scattered by dust layers within our galaxy. Multiple space and ground-based telescopes witnessed one of the brightest explosions in space when it reached EarthNASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement: 'This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting.'Swift resumed observations once the rescue attempt was called off, discovering even more gamma-ray bursts and other ultrahigh-energy events. But by late October, the telescope was too low to remain steady for observations, and its systems were shut down.Its final tally included more than 2,000 gamma-ray bursts and 1,400 exploding stars, not to mention a slew of comets, asteroids and star-shredding black holes. The telescope’s superpower was its ability to swivel swiftly toward erupting celestial events.NASA considered Swift a first responder for the Hubble and Webb space telescopes and others that would follow its alerts and provide deeper investigations. Scientists are still figuring out how to fill the gap.Nousek said: 'Our fervent hope is that the lessons learned by the successes of Swift can be applied to new generations of space missions to accelerate our discoveries about the universe.'