With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World…
He is due to fall back to Earth tomorrow – but spaceman Chris Hadfield has tweeted another picture of Belfast from space.
Commander Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut and serial tweeter who has been snapping photos of Earth from the space station and sharing them online.
But as he entered his final 24 hours aboard ISS he tweeted a picture of Belfast, quizzing followers: “Belfast, at the mouth of the River Lagan. Strangely, not the river the city was named after. Who can tell me why?”
Dozens responded on the social media site, debating the reasons why the city was named after the River Farset (Béal Feirste – the Mouth of the Farset) which is now contained within a tunnel under the High Street.
Hadfield, who has a daughter studying at Trinity College in the Republic, has previously shot and tweeted two photos of Dublin.
He also provided the first message tweeted from space in Irish — Tá Éire fíorálainn! (Ireland is exquisite). He added: “Land of green hills dark beer. With Dublin glowing in the Irish night.”
The astronaut has been aboard the space station since December carrying out scientific experiments.
The space station orbits earth every 92 minutes at 8km per second.
Today he said: “Almost time to leave Station. Hard to express all of my emotions, but mostly gratitude. I came here on behalf of so many people – thank you.”
Twitter: twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield
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