My 15 Favorite Commander Hadfield Photos

“Who’d have thought that five months away from the planet would make you feel closer to people,” mused Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield a few days before his return trip back to Earth. Along with two crew members, the commander of International Space Station Expedition 35 landed safely in Kazakhstan on May 13, 2013, via a Russian Soyuz space capsule.

What a tour it has been. After 2,336 orbits, 62 million miles traveled, Hadfield returns as a rock star of sorts. His recording of a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” quickly went viral this week (6 million+ views and counting). But it’s not just his skill with a guitar that has attracted attention. More than anything else, it has been Hadfield’s mastery of the camera—and Twitter—that has catapulted him to fame.

Hadfield isn’t the first astronaut to tweet from space. Mike Massimino did that in 2009. But the abundance and quality of Hadfield’s tweets has set a new standard. He spent several hours per day taking photographs from the Cupola, and with the help of his son Evan (back on Earth) posted the best of them to his feed.

The photos they shared didn’t seem to be raw. One of the Hadfields must have been tweaking the brightness and contrast of the images to make them pop. When paired with snappy, heartfelt captions, the photos proved irresistible. Hadfield’s online followers skyrocketed from about 20,000 when he went into space to more than 900,000 when he returned. Many of his images were retweeted thousands of times.

To celebrate the safe return of Expedition 35, I’ve posted fifteen of my favorites below. Thank you, Commander Hadfield, for the remarkable tour. And welcome home.