Watch Tim Peake’s spacewalk live

NASA astronaut Terry Virts captured this stunning image of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scandinavia on a moonlit night beneath an amazing curtain of aurora.

British astronaut Tim Peake, along with Soyuz commander Yuri Malenchenko and outgoing space station skipper Tim Kopra, departed the International Space Station today aboard the Soyuz TMA-19M capsule and landed safely in Kazakhstan at 1016 BST (0916 GMT).

Britain’s first astronaut, Helen Sharman, received a congratulatory phone call from Tim Peake aboard the International Space Station during celebrations in London to mark the 25th anniversary of her historic mission to the Mir space station.