Inspirational astronaut Colonel Chris Hadfield has circled the Earth aboard the International Space Station and recorded a music video 150 miles away in orbit.
And today the Canadian spaceman is in Leicester to discuss his out-of-this-world experiences and motivate the next generation of cosmic explorers and engineers.
Col Hadfield, 54, who commanded the International Space Station (ISS) during his last visit to the orbiting laboratory, will be talking to students at the University of Leicester's Space Research Centre (SRC) today (Friday, December 13).
He will also be taking part in a questions and answer session at the National Space Centre with school and college students.
The North American astronaut is famous for Tweeting breath-taking photographs of Earth from space, and record a version of David Bowie's classic song Space Oddity whilst aboard the ISS.
Dr Harjinder Sembhi of the University of Leicester's SRC's Earth Observation Science group, said: "Chris has done a fantastic job of raising public awareness for our area of science to a whole new level."
Col Hadfield will meet physics and astronomy students from the university who will present their research and discuss various aspects of space science and cosmology.
Dr Sembhi's colleague Professor George Fraser said: "We are well-established in space research at Leicester and pride ourselves on providing high-quality and innovative teaching to enrich our students.
"Colonel Hadfield captured our attention in such a way that we wanted to give our undergraduate and postdoctoral students an opportunity to meet and share their research projects with him."
Col Hadfield returned to Earth earlier this year and announced his retirement soon after.
It comes as British astronaut, Major Tim Peake, prepares to visit the orbiting ISS in about two years' time.
Chas Bishop, chief executive of the National Space Centre, in Exploration Drive, said: "We are looking forward to introducing Chris to as many people as we can.
"Chris's visit not only gives us the chance to meet the astronaut of the modern age of social media, but will also give us a foretaste of 2015, when our own Major Tim Peake will spend six months on the ISS."
Col Hadfield's visit is part of an international book tour for his memoirs, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth.
The book describes his first space flight aboard the Russian Space station MIR and then, in April 2001, when made his first visit to the ISS to install its robot arm, called CanadaArm2.
More recently, Col Hadfield was flight engineer on ISS expedition 34 and the first Canadian Commander of the ISS on expedition 35, from December 2012 to May 2013.
