Wearing a t-shirt embroidered with the Canadian Space Agency logo, today astronaut Chris Hadfield—who launched to the International Space Station in December and will become the first Canadian to take command in March—chatted live with school kids in Milton, Ont., where he grew up, from his new home on the ISS. Hadfield showed off a few tricks in microgravity, spinning his microphone in slow arcs, floating his wristwatch in mid-air, and even turning himself upside down. He even played guitar, to bursts of applause and cheers.

“What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen in space?” one Grade 5 student asked. Hadfield appeared to give it a moment of thought, then answered that his favourite sight is the sunrise. “When the sun comes up, it’s beautiful,” he said. “We come around the world and drive into the sunshine,” the horizon glowing “every colour of the rainbow.” Hadfield has often spoken poetically about the view from space, and has been documenting it in photos; at one point, he slid open the blind on a window behind him, as students gasped and applauded. “I can look down and see the world, and look up and see the universe,” he said.

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