A space telescope's second act, NEOWISE was assigned to monitor asteroids and comets, especially those that might threaten Earth. Launched in December 2009 as WISE (the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), it scanned the distant universe until February 2011 - identifying the most luminous galaxies in the cosmos, finding millions of hidden black holes, and discovering the coolest class of stars. Then in late 2013, WISE was taken out of hibernation, repurposed, and renamed NEOWISE, for the Near-Earth Objects it would hunt. As expected, due to increased solar activity, NEOWISE reentered and burned up in Earth's atmosphere at 8:49 p.m. EDT on November 1, 2024.