Sunday, November 14, 2021

Makkah: Russian cosmonaut, Anton Shkaplerov, shared the photos of Madinah al Munawwarah – the city of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as seen from the space.

Russian astronauts are called cosmonauts. The word is derived from the Greek words for “universe” and “sailor”.

While sharing the photos of Madina taken from space on his Twitter account, Anton Shkaplerov, wrote:

“#Medina is the second most important sacred city in the Muslim world. It is located in the western part of #SaudiArabia and is only 150 km from the Red Sea.”

“Medina is a very unusual and probably one of the oldest places on Earth that has been living uninterruptedly for centuries.”

#Medina is the second most important sacred city in the Muslim world. It is located in the western part of #SaudiArabia and is only 150 km from the Red Sea.

Medina is a very unusual and probably one of the oldest places on Earth that has been living uninterruptedly for centuries pic.twitter.com/WVQXbQ7Pk6— Anton Shkaplerov (@Anton_Astrey) November 11, 2021

Anton Shkaplerov is on his 2nd expedition to space. He docked for the International Space Station (ISS) on October 5, 2021 and returned to Earth on October 17, 2021.

For his 2nd expedition to space, Shkaplerov was accompanied by actress Yulia Peresild and producer Klim Shipenko. The trio lifted aboard Russia's Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4.55 a.m. EDT on October 5.

Aboard the spacecraft they later joined Expedition 65 Commander Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency), NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov on International Space Station (ISS).

“Time spins away quickly: 10 years have passed since the first expedition! A lot has changed since then: 3 modifications of Soyuz, 3 schemes of approaching, new configuration of the ISS, even more experiments. A lot more interesting things to come... The flight continues!” Shkaplerov tweeted.

Anton Shkaplerov along with Anatoly Ivanishin and two other Russian astronauts had travelled to space for the first time in 2012. They later visited the Prince Salman Science Oasis (PSSO) in Saudi Arabia.

While sharing their experience in space with Saudi students, they said while taking a picture of some beautiful cities from outer space, the brightest and beautiful cities he saw were Makkah and Madinah, specifically the spots in the centers of the two holy cities.

“When you are in outer space, we take photos during the day for good visibility and shot, but at night it is difficult to take pictures because you have to use a special technique. In spite of this, I managed to take many pictures of various cities at night. I was amazed to find that the cities of Makkah and Madinah outshone other cities around the world,” astronaut Anatoly Ivanishin is quoted as saying to Saudi students by Arab News.

Source: https://ummid.com/news/2021/november/14.11.2021/russian-astronaut-shares-photos-of-madinah-from-space.html