Chris Hadfield, the Canadian astronaut, whose tweets and videos have sparked interest in Nasa's space programme making him a celebrity, captured an image of the Maltese islands from outer space and tweeted it under the title ‘Malta and Gozo glowing in the Med. under a halo of cloud on their hills’.

The image was taken on 16 February by the commander of the International Space Station while orbiting space. He landed in Kazakhstan with his two crewmates, wrapping up a five-month mission. 

Mr Hadfield became an internet sensation after his rendition of David Bowie's song ‘Space Oddity’.

He made history on Monday when he released the first music video shot in space, a zero-gravity version of Bowie’s hit song

The Canadian astronaut launched towards the International Space Station on December 19 with about 20,000 Twitter followers to his name and returned Monday night with roughly 45 times that number — 880,000-plus people, Canada celebrating his return.

A person named ‘Zu_handen’ posted a comment dubbing the picture fake, his tweet met with stark criticism by other tweeters.

Mr Hadfield suggested other tweeters they let sleeping dogs lie, saying “he is just getting a rise out of people’, meaning Zu-handen’ was attempting to spark a controversy.