Astronaut Celebrates Hanukkah from Space with Festive Socks

One astronaut on the International Space Station celebrated Hanukkah yesterday (Dec. 22) with some colorful accessories.

On the first night of Hanukkah, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir tweeted a photo of her feet in some nontraditional but festive blue, neon green and purple socks, complete with menorahs and representations of the Star of David. In the photo, her feet are pictured seemingly dangling above the Earth from space, as she took the photo in the Cupola, an observatory module on the space station.

"Happy Hanukkah to all those who celebrate it on Earth! #HappyHanukkah," Meir's tweet read. 

Related: International Space Station: Facts, History & Tracking

With thousands of likes and retweets, people around the world appreciated Meir's holiday greeting, with many responding with "chag sameach," which translates to "happy holidays" in Hebrew. 

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft was scheduled to dock with the space station on Saturday (Dec. 21) and deliver cargo that included holiday presents. However, an anomaly caused the craft to skip its rendezvous and make an early landing back on Earth. Still, it seems like Meir thought ahead to bring some holiday cheer along with her to space so the crew wasn't totally devoid of festive fun this weekend. 

Meir arrived at the space station in late September and has already had an extremely eventful time working on the station. In October, she took part in her first spacewalk, which happened to be the historic, first all-woman spacewalk. She completed it with fellow astronaut Christina Koch, who is on track to beat the record for the most amount of time spent in space by an American woman. 

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