A record number of “earthlings” have come together in space to celebrate New Year
The 2022 New Year celebration has turned out to be the largest ever in orbit with 10 cosmonauts and astronauts in total on two stations, Russia’s space agency has said.
“New Year 2022 celebrations were held in space by 10 earthlings, three of whom were on the Chinese Tiangong Space Station and seven others onboard the International Space Station. This was the most crowded New Year’s ‘Fest’ in orbit in the history of world manned space exploration,” Roscosmos said in a news release.
Roscosmos cosmonaut and ISS-66 expedition commander Anton Shkaplerov, who has celebrated four New Years in space during his career, shared some details of the “feast” held on the International Space Station (ISS) before it kicked off. He said there would be black caviar and mandarins as well as a traditional Russian New Year dish – dressed herring, known as ‘herring under a fur coat.’
Shkaplerov, his friend Pyotr Dubrov also showed how to make the dish on an Instagram video.
The space explorers poured apple juice several times to toast 2022’s beginning, just like many others who live far from home. First, at midnight Moscow time, then for Germany’s New Year, where the ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer is from, then at midnight Greenwich Mean Time – the ISS’s time zone, and finally at midnight Washington, DC time, for the NASA astronauts.
Space has celebrated the beginning of the new year since 1986, when Soviet space station Mir was launched.
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