A Soyuz capsule carrying space travellers Oleg Kotov, Timothy Creamer and Soichi Noguchi landed today in Kazakhstan, or yesterday, depending on your time zone of reference (11:25 pm EDT Tuesday, 9:25 am Wednesday Kazakh time).

Since he blasted of into space in December last year ‘Astro Soichi’ has been continually posting pictures snapped aboard the International Space Station and has racked up over a quarter of a million followers for his ‘tweets from space’.

His stint in space has been the longest ever by a Japanese astronaut. Upon returning to Earth he said “the air on Earth tastes good” (Manichi Daily News).

Here is a selection of some of our favourite photos from the best space-based photographer of recent times (excluding Hubble, of course). Full set below the fold, click pictures for full size versions.

Ohanami – cherry blossom festival in Space Station 🙂	Midnight running! Galaxy Express 131, Discovery.	Big Sahara.
Fly through Aurora at 28,000kmh. Happy 1,000 tweets 🙂	Laguna di Venezia, Italy.	Mt. Fuji, JAPAN. On the morning of my 100th day on orbit 🙂
My favorite “cat” island 🙂 mediterrainean.	Pacman? Irrigation in Saudi Arabia.	Minamitori-shima. Eastern-most island of Japan.

Uluru, Australia. In the morning light. Big rock. I mean, a huge rock.World heritage. Sacred place.	Venus and sunset.	South Patagonia. One of the most beautiful glaciers of the world. 800mm lens will take you there 🙂
Space Shuttle Endeavour making S-turn during atmospheric reentry. The first time it was photographed from Space Station Cupola. Priceless 🙂	Let there be light! Cupola windows open toward Sahara desert. Priceless!	Bye!