Artist's illustration of NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which launched to Earth orbit in November 2004 and will soon fall out of space. (Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab)

NASA's Swift space telescope is expected to crash back to Earth in the next few days.

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory will reenter Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled fashion, after a robotic rescue mission failed to boost the scope to a higher orbit.

Swift launched to Earth orbit back in November 2004. Over the next two decades, it studied gamma-ray bursts — the most powerful explosions in the universe — and other cosmic objects and events using a trio of telescopes: a Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), an X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and its Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT).

On Oct.…