Tim Peake ready for his mission to the space station

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and ESA astronaut Tim Peake shared a series of aurora photographs taken from the International Space Station on 20 January 2016. The dancing lights of the aurora provide spectacular views on the ground, but also capture the imagination of scientists who study incoming energy and particles from the Sun.

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying Britain’s Tim Peake, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, parachuted to the flat grasslands of Kazakhstan on Saturday, returning home from a six month mission to the International Space Station.

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.