Planet Earth is blue… Astronauts dock safely with International Space Station

British astronaut Major Tim Peake has docked safely with the International Space Station (ISS). The Soyuz FG rocket with his two colleagues – Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko and NASA astronaut Tim Kopra – on board was successfully “captured” at 5.33pm UK time, just 10 minutes behind schedule. The crew will now have to wait for about 90 minutes for the cabin pressure either side of the airlock to be regulated before the trio can access the ISS. They had blasted off at 11.03am UK time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Major Peake, 43, looked at the on-board video camera and gave a thumbs up gesture as the spacecraft completed its first booster stage and the boosters fell away.

I want to go with Daddy.

Tim Peake’s four-year-old son Oliver.

The crew had a tense wait of more than an hour in the tiny capsule before the scheduled launch time. It will take around six hours to reach the ISS, which travels around the Earth at 28,000 kmph (17,500mph). Major Peake is joined by NASA astronaut Tim Kopra and cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, both spaceflight veterans. The arriving crew will be greeted by the space station’s current inhabitants: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov. Kelly and Kornienko are nearing the end of their year-long space mission, and Volkov has been on the station since early September.

Science