Neil Gehrels

A doomed spacecraft set to plunge to Earth in weeks has shared new cosmic images.

NASA's Neil Gehrels' Swift Observatory was launched in 2004 to detect and monitor gamma-ray bursts.

But after 21 years of science operations, its low Earth orbit began to rapidly decay because of increased solar activity.

So a daring mission, according to NASA, to catch and lift the observatory to a higher orbit failed over the summer.