With the opening of the FIFA World Cup 2014, fans across the world are all engaged in the exciting soccer matches. While the championship will be played on ground, astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will be watching the competition and cheering for the teams from above the earth.
The world cup started on 12 June 2014 and will continue till 13 June 2014. While billions of fans will be viewing it on television and on the internet, a few of the astronauts will be enjoying the game a tad differently.
United States astronauts Reid Wiseman and Steve Swanson and German astronaut Alexander Gerst will be cheering for their teams from around 230 miles above Earth. The games are building friendly competition among the US astronauts and their German crew mates, as their home countries will be playing against each other on 26 June in Recife, Brazil.
"We want to wish all the teams and the fans on the ground a great World Cup. Have fun and a peaceful games. May the best win," Tech Times quoted Gerst of Germany.
The crew members have conveyed a special good luck message to all the teams who are competing for the World Cup 2014 in Brazil.
"Have fun, play hard, and we'll be watching on the International Space Station," Wiseman, space flight engineer said.
While Swanson has been part of the Expedition 39/40 since 25 March and is expected to be back in September 2014, Wiseman and Gerst of the European Space Agency left for the station on 28 May and will be working in space until they return in November 2014.
A picture was taken by Wiseman that showed three World Cup Stadiums captured in a single shot from the space station. The cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro could be identified in the image.
NASA created a video showing space travelers playing ball in microgravity, and conveying wishes to the teams and fans of World Cup 2014.
The space station is a microgravity environment as it is in low earth orbit. The space crew members experience weightlessness in the space station due to the station's constant state of freefall.
