US astronaut Jessica Meir has just returned to Earth – and to a very different planet from the one she left.

“It really was this stark contrast, because, of course, the Earth didn’t look any different to us,” she told NBC. “It looked just as gorgeous, equally as stunning, as it had been before everything happened.

And to then think about what was going down on the surface and that every person, all 7½ billion people on the planet, were being affected by this and only three of us who were in space at the time weren’t.

That was really difficult to comprehend, as well, that we were the only three individuals that it wasn’t affecting our lives in some way.”

Since returning astronauts are physiologically similar to people with compromised immune systems, Meir and her two co-astronauts were sent straight into isolation when they reached home.

Meir, whose father is Jewish but whose mother is not, added that, “I would have loved to stay up there longer, and especially coming home to a completely different planet like the one we’ve returned to.” She was in space for 205 days, and NBC noted that last October, Meir made history when she took part in NASA’s first-ever all-female spacewalk.

Header: NASA astronaut Jessica Meir tweeted her wishes for peace on earth from space saying: “Gazing down at the city in which my father was raised, I take to heart one of his most uttered expressions, ‘This too shall pass’. Wise words to remember, in both good times and bad. “