For twenty-one years, NASA's Swift telescope has served as humanity's sentinel for the universe's most violent moments — gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, the sudden bright deaths of distant stars. Now the observatory itself faces a quieter but no less certain end, pulled earthward by the patient friction of atmosphere. A robotic rescue mission designed to push Swift back to safety has failed due to an orientation flaw, leaving the telescope with perhaps two months before it sinks below the altitude at which science becomes impossible. It is a reminder that even our most enduring instruments are m