Life & Style

US astronaut poses with Irish artist's sketch on International Space Station

IRISH artist Jack Conway-Kenny has become the first person from Ireland to have his art displayed in outer space.

The sketch artist put pencil to paper to create his magnificent drawing of NASA astronaut Scott Kelly two weeks ago, sharing the completed piece on his Instagram account when he finished.

Finished piece of @stationcdrkelly! ? Congratulations, only a few days to go! ? #art #artist #artoftheday #drawing #sketch #pencil #spacestation #picture #painting #realism #young_artists_help #followme #artwork #creative #illustration #life #irishfitfam #misc #aware #myart #portrait #iss #tattoo #artforsale #mural #follow #scottkelly #yearinspace #nasa #rspace

A photo posted by Jack (@artlinebling) on Feb 24, 2016 at 7:17am PST

The space station is located 400km from Earth and orbits the planet at a speed of about 17,500km per hour.

Kelly was on board as the station's commander until March 1.

He returned to Earth a week ago - but on Wednesday, he shared a picture taken of him in the International Space Station holding up a photo of Jack's sketch.

As a result, Jack is the first Irish person to have his artwork viewed in outer space.

See the picture of Jack's sketch in space below

Great drawing @artlinebling! Your sketch of @marcogrob's photograph of me made it aboard the @iss. #exploration #art #drawing #space #spacestation #iss #exploration #dreambig

A photo posted by Scott Kelly (@stationcdrkelly) on Mar 9, 2016 at 8:01pm PST