“I have taken a lot of pictures because I’ve been up here for a long time,” NASA astronaut Scott Kelly said during a recent press conference from the International Space Station. “I’ve definitely taken some good ones and some memorable ones.”
When he returns to Earth on Tuesday evening, Kelly will have spent 340 days aboard the ISS. While that’s not quite a year, it’s still a record for an American astronaut, and one of the longest-lasting spaceflights ever.
Kelly is not the only member of his family to visit the station. His twin brother, Mark Kelly, is also an astronaut, and flew multiple shuttle missions to the orbiting outpost. The twins grew up in West Orange, N.J., as the sons of police officers. “We lived a pretty exciting and adventurous life,” Scott says of his childhood.
Scott Kelly takes his images through the windows of the Space Station’s cupola module. It might give the impression that he lives and works with the Earth constantly in view, but that’s not the case. Most of the space station’s rooms are fluorescent-lit boxes. “You don’t get real sunlight,” he says.