Returning French superstar spaceman Thomas Pesquet's ode to Earth in pictures
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French astronaut Thomas Pesquet returned to Earth on Friday after a six-month mission on the ISS. He travelled 400km up to study space, but his tweets highlighted his home planet. FRANCE 24 has unearthed Pesquet’s out-of-this-world images.
The Normandy-born Pesquet made the three-hour-and-20-minute return trip on Friday alongside Russian colleague Oleg Novitskiy on the Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft, which delivered the pair onto the steppes of Kazakhstan at around 2:10pm GMT (4:10pm Paris time).
It’s been a fantastic adventure and amazing ride. We got a lot of work done up here. Now it’s time to come back to the planet. See you soon! pic.twitter.com/NToaV0WcUY
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) June 2, 2017
At 39, Pesquet is the youngest of the European Space Agency’s roster of astronauts. This space voyage was his first, after training for more than seven years.
Night-flight over #Europe with thunderstorms in the distance. Note how the atmosphere changes from green to orange https://t.co/91bzMq1Hgy pic.twitter.com/L05Clp2PCN
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) May 12, 2017
His 196-day trip falls just three days short of the record for the longest continuous mission in space by a European.
Betsimboka river, Madagascar, with its vivid colors: bright reds and purples mixed with blue and lush green. Nature is beautiful! #EarthArt pic.twitter.com/bKGulZYJ7v
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) May 13, 2017
A spacecraft engineer by training, Pesquet is also a former commercial pilot for Air France.
Time to change your desktop wallpaper? Kilometres of blue in the white-sanded Bahamas https://t.co/dqCdZgYEkE #proxima pic.twitter.com/2jpz7vtJhY
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 11, 2017
The son of a maths and physics professor and a schoolteacher, the polyglot Pesquet speaks French, English, German, Russian and Spanish.
Waves are majestic, both up close and from space. As I watch them from here, I can just about imagine the sound of water hitting the shore pic.twitter.com/xsHFYjBXAg
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) May 30, 2017
He is also an accomplished sportsman, with a black belt in judo and extensive scuba and skydiving experience to round out the tableau.
The delta of Saloum in Senegal, you can tell it is full of life from up here, but also a fragile ecosystem pic.twitter.com/P7foVWx2Zg
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 21, 2017
(And yes, ladies, he is taken; Pesquet’s partner, Anne Mottet, lives in Rome, where she works for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.)
Venice is one of the many cities that will suffer from sea-level rising @la_Biennale #BiennaleArte2017 https://t.co/PlbdSOtI1H pic.twitter.com/Af1p4xKDlA
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) May 20, 2017
The Frenchman conducted 60 scientific experiments in space and completed two spacewalks to conduct maintenance on the International Space Station (ISS).
Looks like everybody wants to live by the water in #Kuwait. Now where was my house again? ;) https://t.co/b1rkQIO6As pic.twitter.com/twz7uHheaq
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 15, 2017
But for the general public in France and beyond – and for @thom_astro’s 561,000 Twitter followers, in particular – his trip will be remembered as a window on the earth.
#Australia is not bad at #springart, even though it is autumn down under! It has the craziest colours on Earth, from river beds to mines pic.twitter.com/lh9Qcs2kQ0
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) May 15, 2017
Pesquet's extraordinary photographs and videos from space displayed natural and man-made phenomena all around the planet, sometimes explicitly remarking on a magnificent vista’s vulnerability to climate change.
This pic shows how fragile Earth is–the thin band on the horizon is our atmosphere, the only protection from the vacuum & radiation of space pic.twitter.com/GPP3xXtLKE
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 24, 2017
“There are things that one understands intellectually, but which one doesn’t really get,” Pesquet told Agence France-Presse via videolink, while gently floating around in zero gravity inside the ISS. When it comes to global warming, he said, “We talk of two degrees (Celsius) or four degrees – these are numbers which sometimes exceed human understanding. But to see the planet as a whole… to see it for yourself… this allows you to truly appreciate the fragility.”
Paradise in the Indian Ocean: the beautiful Maldives, threatened by the rising water levels #climatechange https://t.co/DN9qlWZNV9 #proxima pic.twitter.com/YnB5zn9OhO
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 28, 2017
Alas, Pesquet, who lifted off when Barack Obama was still president of the United States and Donald Trump the new president-elect, also returns to earth less than 24 hours after Trump’s announcement that the US would pull out of the Paris climate agreement.
How can a river produce such elaborate and beautiful shapes and color? Sometimes I want to drop my camera and just watch the beauty of Earth pic.twitter.com/NtvSE2UNdw
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 26, 2017
Pesquet arrived on the ISS on November 20, which was also before the election of a French president only two months his elder.
Paris, without a cloud. I can’t wait to see it again from close! And @rolandgarros starts today :) https://t.co/6lqv7cfVB6 ???? pic.twitter.com/GuqnMBpQuP
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) May 22, 2017
Emmanuel Macron followed Pesquet's return to earth from France’s National Centre for Space Studies in Paris on Friday afternoon. The president and the astronaut will speak briefly once Pesquet exits the capsule in Kazahkstan.
This photo in #Arizona tells tales: nature likes curves and randomness, man likes order and geometry... who will win in the end? pic.twitter.com/XH7AHjDKLp
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) May 2, 2017
Far away from the human eye, the Sahara hides marvellous natural wonders. #EarthArt https://t.co/tfulUMRCQB #Proxima pic.twitter.com/RpDwsLFjAW
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 23, 2017
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