An astronaut shares his incredible perspective of our planet
Excerpt: Hello, is this planet Earth?
The following images and captions are excerpted from astronaut Tim Peake’s book Hello, is this planet Earth?.
The aurora over northern Canada. The red hue visible is a result of excited atomic oxygen at higher altitudes and more intense solar activity.
–20 January 2016 over Edmonton, Canada.
The largest visible impact crater on Earth. Canada’s 210-million-year-old Manicouagan impact crater.
–5 May 2016 over Manicouagan, Quebec.
Our space station takes on a blue glow just before dawn—cool! Looking forward from the Cupola window, the U.S., Japanese and European laboratories are illuminated.
–15 February 2016 over the Southern Indian Ocean.
“Holiday Island.” towards the end of the mission, as we were starting to think more of home, we began planning our dream holidays. Each astronaut would pick their ultimate getaway island. This was mine.
–11 June 2016 over the Aldabra Islands, Seychelles.
My ride home. Our Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft looking as good as the day she was launched into orbit. This was our lifeboat for six months had we needed to return to Earth in a hurry. The Progress cargo spacecraft (right) is also docked to the ISS and looks very similar to a Soyuz.
–26 April 2016 over the Indian Ocean.
Listening to Coldplay’s “A Sky full of Stars”… it sure is! Sometimes the stars were so bright it was hard to make out familiar constellations.
–6 June 2016 over the Indian Ocean, off Mogadishu, Somalia.
Great to see DIWATA-1, the first Filipino microsatellite, launched today from the Space Station. This 50 kg microsatellite was developed by scientists in the Philippines and Japan to provide satellite images for environmental monitoring and meteorological applications.
–27 April 2016 over the North Atlantic Ocean.
Rio Santa Cruz in all its glory! The stunning turquoise of this glacial river is incredibly distinctive from space. Flowing from the ice fields of Patagonia, it winds its way eastwards across Argentina to spill into the South Atlantic.
–23 March 2016, over Rio Bote, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.
Stunning Viedma glacier in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.
–24 March 2016 El Chalten, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.
Excerpted from Hello, is this planet Earth? by Tim Peake. Little, Brown and Company. Published with permission.
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