From one isolation to the next: Astronauts return to an Earth battling coronavirus

Three astronauts returned to Earth early Friday morning after spending over 200 days in space, according to NASA, but it’s not the same planet they left last year.

The scientists from the International Space Station conducted hundreds of experiments in biology, technology development, and human research, including how heart tissue functions in space, according to the space agency. Now, they must continue to isolate themselves like the rest of the world in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

As of April 17, 2.2 million people across the world had been infected by the coronavirus and nearly 150,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan, along with Oleg Skripochka of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, safely landed at 1:16 a.m. in Kazakhstan, NASA reported.

The trio was greeted by a ground crew sporting face masks that helped carry them out of the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft and carefully place them in chairs, the video shows.

“It’s a little bit surreal to think that we’re going back, especially given the situation that’s been unfolding on the ground,” flight engineer Meir told NPR during an interview Wednesday. “It looks like we are going back to a completely different planet.”

After returning from space, astronauts must always go through a series of medical and physical tests to see how their bodies withstood living in space, according to NASA.

“NASA will closely adhere to the CDC’s recommendations on infection control for the coronavirus as Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir return to Earth and begin their post-flight medical testing and re-adaptation period,” Courtney Beasley, a spokesperson at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, told CNN.

After returning to Houston, Texas by plane, both Meir and Morgan will spend their first week quarantining in crew quarters at the Johnson Space Center, according to CBS News.

“I think it’s actually going to feel more confined and more isolating to do that on Earth than it is up here because that’s something that we expect and train for,” Meir told NPR. “We have so many extraordinary things happening around us at all times up here, we don’t really feel like that isolation and confinement is an issue.”

But after long space missions like this one, astronauts can have slightly weakened immune systems, which is risky when returning to an Earth battling a pandemic, NASA says.

When in space, an astronaut’s brain, heart, blood vessels, eyes, ears and even cells physically change.

Abnormalities in immune system cells, for example, block their bodies from fighting viruses like it should, which can result in illness, NASA said. Some ISS crews in the past had dormant viruses from their childhood reactivated while in space because of these changes.

And without gravity to provide spatial orientation and grounding, astronauts can get motion sick and loose coordination, according to NASA.

This is why when they return to gravity they must be helped out of their spacecraft; if they try to walk on their own, they can fall, NASA says. Initially, it’s hard for astronauts to turn corners, land from jumps and bend over.

Recovery typically takes about three days, according to NASA, but it can be longer for those who spent more time in space.

This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 3:27 PM with the headline "From one isolation to the next: Astronauts return to an Earth battling coronavirus."