Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Pungent gas above ​Martian fissures hints at ongoing volcanism

An orbiting atmospheric ​research spacecraft has detected the pungent gas ‌hydrogen chloride ​above surface fissures along a massive ancient volcano on Mars in a finding that suggests Earth's planetary neighbor is still volcanically active. In a discovery that has ‌implications for whether Mars might presently have subsurface conditions conducive to microbial life, researchers said the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter has documented the gas, a common constituent of volcanic emissions on Earth, in the low atmosphere in the region ‌of Alba Mons.

NASA's 22-year-old Swift satellite telescope falls from orbit in fiery finale

NASA's Swift satellite telescope, which ‌spent two decades studying the most powerful known blasts of energy in the cosmos, tumbled out of orbit as expected on Wednesday and burned up in Earth's atmosphere over Indonesia, the space agency reported. The fiery demise of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, weighing roughly ⁠3,200 pounds (1,452 ​kg), came less than ⁠three months after a rescue spacecraft failed its mission to boost the satellite to higher orbit and extend its life.

Russia may have rehearsed ⁠attack on satellite, specialist says, flagging another approach

A Russian military satellite that approached a Western commercial one last month could ​have been rehearsing an attack, a military space specialist said, with two related Russian craft now heading in ⁠the direction of another Western satellite. US Under Secretary of State Thomas DiNanno said on X following the mid-October incident that Russia's Cosmos ⁠2612 ​military satellite had been "intentionally maneuvering dangerously close to a commercial satellite" in conduct "consistent with on-orbit weapons operations."

NASA's Swift satellite telescope heads for fiery re-entry 22 years after launch

An aging NASA satellite telescope that a robotic spacecraft was ⁠sent to retrieve on a failed rescue mission this summer was headed for a fiery re-entry into Earth's ⁠atmosphere on Wednesday, nearly 22 ⁠years after it was launched into orbit. The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, weighing roughly 3,200 pounds (1,452 kg), was set to tumble out of orbit and burn up ‌in the atmosphere somewhere ‌over the tropics, with fragments surviving re-entry unlikely to threaten ​populated areas, according to NASA.