Astronaut's spacewalking snap joins line of splashy space selfies
Few selfies are as dramatic as the ones taken in space. A NASA astronaut delivers a spacewalk selfie that includes himself, Earth and the International Space Station.
The current crew of the International Space Station is still living in the long social-media shadow of popular Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who's known for music videos in space and having over a million Twitter followers. Astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore made some inroads this weekend with a splashy appearance on Facebook when NASA shared a selfie of him taken during a spacewalk outside the ISS.
The selfie shows a reflection of part of the ISS as well as Wilmore's spacewalk partner Terry Virts in Wilmore's visor. Behind the astronaut is a background of swirling clouds and blue from the Earth below. The dramatic image attracted over 54,000 likes from NASA followers on Facebook.
Wilmore's selfie was taken during the first of three scheduled spacewalks. "The cable routing work is part of a reconfiguration of station systems and modules to accommodate the delivery of new docking adapters that commercial crew vehicles will use later this decade to deliver astronauts to the orbital laboratory," NASA says.
Wilmore's in good company when it comes to capturing snapshots far, far away from the Earth's surface. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin lays claim to the first extravehicular-activity space selfie with a photo he took in 1966 during a spacewalk while the Gemini 12 mission was under way.
Since then, other astronauts have joined the space-selfie ranks. Even machines have gotten in on the action, with NASA's Mars Curiosity rover and the European Space Agency's Rosetta delivering memorable self-portraits in recent years.