At around 11:25 EST Tuesday, a metal capsule will gently parachute down to Earth in Kazakhstan after leaving the International Space Station some 250 miles above the planet.
Aboard that capsule will be three passengers, including astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, who just completed a 340-day stay aboard the International Space Station. While inhabiting the ISS, Kelly and his Russian counterpart Kornienko were subjected to a battery of experiments meant to explore everything from the effects of microgravity on their eyeballs to the effects cosmic radiation has had on their DNA. Kelly, in the process, set the American record for most cumulative days spent in space.
Kelly is of particular interest to researchers because he has an identical twin, former astronaut Mark Kelly, who remained on Earth while he has floated above, providing the perfect scientific control. Now, the experiment is done, and Kelly — who became a ...
