Today we worked on astrophysics — four orbits in shadow. Went fairly well. Flashes from the orientation engines look like a white cloud of particles, comparable in brightness to the clouds under a full Moon. When the Moon is old (only a quarter visible), the flashes are pink, like sparks from a bonfire. An enormous sheaf of them flies off about 20 meters and dies out.

Upon entering sunlight, in the first rays, sparse particles are visible, and if you bang on the hull, silvery flocks of them are born, shimmering as they drift away from the station while some hover nearby, swaying as if in water. Some glow at a distance of 20-25 cm right outside the window, just sitting there, and one shines like an electric lamp. I’m watching this particle now — slowly rotating and sparkling, it drifts perpendicular to the window, while another bright one has been hanging about 10-15 meters away for about 10 minutes. It’s above, to the right, like a companion of the station, born of it. And then the sunrise floods them with light and the Earth with a lilac haze. We meet the dawn over the Motherland.

Beautiful, calm, majestic — our lands spread out below. In the morning haze, the contrails of aircraft are visible.