The European Space Agency's Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite fell to Earth this week. This is how it looked like doing so.

This image was captured by Bill Chater on November 11th. He explained that  “driving southwards at dusk, it appeared with bright smoke trail and split in 2 before splitting again into more and going on north.”

GOCE spent four years mapping Earth’s gravity with unrivalled precision. [ESA Image by Bill Chater]