An astronaut shares his incredible perspective of our planet

Excerpt: Hello, is this planet Earth?
aurora
Aurora over Canada. Tim Peake

Share

book cover
Hello? Tim Peake

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.

crater
Impact crater in Canada. Tim Peake

The largest visible impact crater on Earth. Canada’s 210-million-year-old Manicouagan impact crater.

–5 May 2016 over Manicouagan, Quebec.

Blue Glow
Space station at dawn. Tim Peake

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.

Peake's holiday island
Island getaway. Tim Peake

“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
Soyuz ‘lifeboat’ at the ISS. Tim Peake

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.

starry night
Starry night. Tim Peake

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.

cubesat
Filipino microsatellite. Tim Peake

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.

river
South American river. Tim Peake

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.

glacier
Glacier and moraines. Tim Peake

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.

Popular Science is delighted to bring you selections from new and noteworthy science-related books. If you are an author or publisher and have a new and exciting book that you think would be a great fit for our website, please get in touch! Send an email to books@popsci.com.