French astronaut Thomas Pesquet has been up on the International Space Station (ISS) for four months now and when he’s not busy with experiments and spacewalks, he takes stunning pictures of the Earth below and shares them with world via his Twitter account.
Using a Nikon D4, Pesquet regularly tweets shots of familiar landmarks he can see from space.
The ISS circles the Earth every 90 minutes, giving him plenty of opportunities to snap these postcard pictures.
He recently snapped this picture of the vast snowy plains in Russia but was a little confused about the shelterbelts – rows of trees that act as a windbreak for fields.
Minimalist snow art in Russia. I cannot explain these km-long parallel lines https://t.co/o8reRsmhie pic.twitter.com/Nc9cQEc7wu
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 17, 2017
He also spotted a light dusting of snow on north Africa’s sandy Atlas Mountains.
Snow in the desert! A few flakes have fallen on the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, on the fringes of the Great Eastern Sand Sea ????? pic.twitter.com/sp6ZWZv0Bq
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 15, 2017
He shared this bizarre view of Saudi Arabia, which reminded the astronaut of a certain retro arcade game.
Irrigation in Saudi Arabia. Green peas with a bonus Pac-Man ready to eat them up! ;) https://t.co/3aZA8UqerT pic.twitter.com/jI7e9BbLws
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 17, 2017
In one of his more surreal tweets, Pesquet said the alpine glaciers “look a bit like whipped egg whites”.
Alpine glaciers, look a bit like whipped egg whites. They are fragile like eggs too, you can see traces of melting already #climatechange pic.twitter.com/HY24FXaMzA
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 11, 2017
“They are fragile like eggs too, you can see traces of melting already” he wrote.
He debunked a myth about the Great Wall of China while showing us spectacular pictures of the pyramids from above.
The Wall of China can’t be seen from space with the naked eye.. nor can the pyramids, unless using a zoom! Not #pyramidfail but #pyramidwin! pic.twitter.com/9KyaEodjEc
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 16, 2017
If you look closely, you can see their shaded sides in the middle of the picture.
Finally! Snapped the Pyramids. Anyone have another challenge? #pyramidswin pic.twitter.com/ncIbU27wGK
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 12, 2017
He also put the size of the Grand Canyon in perspective.
The Grand Canyon, is less grand when seen from space but still very impressive! pic.twitter.com/Gwt5Fwpvfw
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 12, 2017
How about the Northern Lights for a lunchtime view?
After not looking outside for a few days, I went to take in the view from Cupola for 5 minutes over lunch. Here's what I got to see! pic.twitter.com/DTiC7CmYph
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 11, 2017
Pasquet is a European Space Agency astronaut and duplicates his tweets in French to keep all his fans happy.
The former Air France pilot will keep snapping until he returns to Earth this May.