Three of the space explorers, Tim Peake, Tim Kopra and Yuri Malenchenko, have returned to Earth after their 186-day-long stay in the International Space Station (ISS).
British astronaut Tim Peake, NASA's Tim Kopra and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malechenko, touched down on Earth at a remote part of Kazakhstan on Saturday morning.
Wonder why the @Space_Station is in such great shape right now? #GoArmy ;) https://t.co/CrbIopER4z pic.twitter.com/WVzxfe56R3
— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) June 17, 2016
The journey back to Earth was made in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, designed to withstand the intense heat created when the spacecraft enters the Earth's atmosphere.
Our #Soyuz is prepped and ready to return to Earth -- and so are we! Such an incredible adventure. @Space_Station pic.twitter.com/FBS2kx9uw9
— Tim Kopra (@astro_tim) June 18, 2016
From undocking from the ISS to the touchdown, the journey back to earth took about 6 hours.
Since the beginning of their journey to ISS, these explorers have taken hundreds of photographs and conducted hundreds of experiments.
The three astronauts will probably need a while to get used to the Earth's atmosphere and gravitational pull, considering the constant state of weightlessness in space.
