Over the weekend, the GOCE scientific satellite burned up in Earth’s atmosphere off the coast of the Falkland Islands.
That’s not exactly downtown Chicago — the Falklands are thinly populated, with only about 3000 people there — so I despaired of seeing an image of the last few moments for GOCE. However, a picture did turn up, taken by Bill Chater:
Photo by Bill Chater / ESA
In a followup tweet, Chater said he has video, so we may yet see a little more of this mission’s noble demise.
It’s always sad to see a mission come to an end, but it helps a lot to know that it was very successful, providing data that scientists will use for many years to come. My congratulations to the GOCE team for their hard work.
