Astronaut who's spent 571 hours in space left overwhelmed after seeing 'something he wasn't meant to'
It's common knowledge that a change of scenery can often work wonders for broadening our horizons - but had you ever considered what a trip to space could do to the mind?
You'd imagine after spending several long and gruelling years in training that most astronauts would be pretty desensitised to the notion of seeing Planet Earth from hundreds of miles away.
But apparently, nothing can ever prepare you for the experience of seeing space with your very own eyes for the first time.
The experience is often so bizarre to wrap your head around that several astronauts report coming back to Earth with a completely different outlook on life.
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For astronaut Mike Massimino, the experience of seeing our world from the perspective of space was not only overwhelming, but left him feeling like he'd seen something people weren't supposed to 'look at'.
Speaking in an interview for Brut alongside fellow astronaut Nicole Stott, Massimino - who made his first visit to space in 2002 - recalled the exact reason why seeing our planet from far away felt wrong.
"My first reaction was this is too beautiful for people to look at," he explained, adding: "[It felt like] we're not meant to see this, [that] it's like a secret."
Massimino went on to explain the feeling was so overwhelming that he even turned his head away from the window for a moment before gathering his thoughts and looking back.
"Then I got a bit emotional and I started to tear up a little bit, just from the beauty of our planet."
He said that seeing Earth from above also gave him a new perspective on the issue of climate change, as you can see the wide scale changes which are happening from afar.
"If there are lake beds that are drying up, if there's rainforests starting to disappear, signs of pollution - you can see those from space," he said.
The former astronaut went on to add that there is still time to make positive changes to our environment but 'we need to give our planet chance to recover."
Massimo is one of many astronauts to experience the phenomena - commonly referred to as the 'Overview Effect' - with several accounts from astronauts available online.
Recalling his experience in an interview with The Big Think, astronaut Ron Garan explained how seeing our planet for the first time made him realise just how interconnected we all are.
"It's obvious from the vantage point of space that we're living a lie. We need to move from thinking economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy," he said.
"There's this light bulb that pops up where they realise how interconnected and interdependent we all are."
Brenna Cooper