One of NASA's space telescopes has succumbed to the onslaught from Earth's "angry" parent star.
According to NASA, one of their telescopes, the "asteroid hunter" NEOWISE, is predicted to fall back into Earth's atmosphere and burn up in late 2024.
NEOWISE is NASA's only space telescope dedicated to planetary defense, launched in 2009 and has been on a mission seven months longer than expected.
NEOWISE telescope - Graphic image: NASA
Before NASA officially announced the end of its mission on July 31, the infrared telescope had discovered more than 200 new near-Earth objects, including 25 comets.
NEOWISE also provided unprecedented data on 44,000 other objects moving rapidly through the Solar System.
Over the past few years, this small spacecraft has been repeatedly "attacked" by its parent star, which is entering its 11-year solar maximum.
Massive bursts of energy from the Sun have been pushing the telescope ever closer to Earth, with no fuel left to attempt a return flight.
As a result, NEOWISE has been steadily losing altitude, and by the end of this year it is expected to be pushed close enough to be affected by Earth's gravity.
This would cause the telescope to plunge rapidly into the atmosphere and be turned into a flame by friction.
Because it is a small spacecraft, NEOWISE is expected to "burn up safely" in the atmosphere.
Therefore, you can be completely assured of its backward fall, as that means there is no risk of dangerous debris being left behind.
Although it may seem like bad news, Professor Amy Mainzer from the University of California, Los Angeles (USA), and also the principal investigator of the NEOWISE mission at NASA, said: "We got a lot more than we expected".
According to Live Science, NASA said it will launch another telescope to succeed NEOWISE, continuing the mission of tracking objects that are dangerous to the Earth. Professor Mainzer has also been selected as the principal investigator for this next mission.
