The Olympic torch for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi embarked on the longest leg of its 40,000-mile journey – to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz space shuttle!
Once it gets there, the torch will be carried to the station’s various modules and on Saturday, November 9, taken on a spacewalk by astronauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy. They’re going to time it so that the space station is flying over Russia when they do, allowing videos and photos of the torch to feature Sochi in the background!
This isn’t the last stop on the torch’s list; later this month, it will head to the bottom of Lake Balkai, the world’s deepest lake, and eventually make its way to the peak of Mount Elbrus – the highest mountain on the European continent! By the time the torch is brought to Sochi on February 7, 2014, to mark the beginning of the Games, it will have travelled over 40,000 miles, through 2,900 towns and been carried by 14,000 torchbearers. Wow! Needless to say, this is the most extensively travelled Olympics torch EVER!
Check out coverage of the torch’s space adventure here:
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