Twitter astronaut is first to post stunning YouTube videos direct from SPACE



Astronaut Soichi Noguchi has already made his name as a prolific Twitterer, who delights his 125,000 followers with live pictures from the International Space Station.

Now the Japanese engineer has gone one better, posting stunning footage of Earth and the Moon on his own YouTube channel.

This morning he posted a two-minute video of the Earth filmed from the window of the new observation deck on the orbiter.



'Welcome to the journey over Madagascar! Enjoy the out-of-the-world view,' he wrote.



The outline of the world's fourth largest island is clearly visible under patchy cloud, as the space station zooms at 17,500MPH over head.

A week ago he unveiled a beautiful one minute clip showing the Moon slowly setting into the horizon.



The 44-year-old has been orbiting 200 miles above our planet since December 2009 and is due to come back this June. His last ISS mission was in 2005.

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Mr Noguchi was taking advantage of the Italian-made cupola installed on the new Tranquility module last month. The £17million observation deck has one central window and six outer windows, which give panoramic views.

It is used by crew members to operate the robotic arms on the station as well as monitor the approach of supply ships.

Major construction on the £60billion orbital outpost is complete and Nasa has only four more shuttle missions planned to ferry spare parts and supplies to the station, a project of 16 nations that has been under construction since 1998.

Mr Noguchi is the only astronaut on YouTube and is by far the most active of the ISS crew on Twitter, posting in both English and Japanese. Today he said the crew have a rest day 'except for a few medical ops and our favorite exercise time.'

The micro-blogging service seems particularly suited to the busy astronauts, who can use it to describe their daily routines in just 140 characters.

The first live Twitter post was sent by astronaut Timothy Creamer on January 25th, after the space station finally went online this year.

