One March 18th, 1965, Alexy Leonov took a small step for a man and exited the Voskhod 22 spacecraft.

Leonov then spent the next 12 minutes spacewalking, the first time a human had done so.

50 years down the track, US astronaut Terry Virts, the current commander of the International Space Station (ISS) took a space stroll and as is the fashion these days, Tweeted it.

It was really cool doing this 50 years after the first one! pic.twitter.com/4PAQ6zUT9A

— Terry W. Virts (@AstroTerry) March 18, 2015

Virt's Tweets have been getting a bit of attention lately, thanks to the one below depicting the Aurora Borealis from space. A solar flare has lit up Earth's aurorae in recent days, providing spectacular light shows from the ground and the ISS.

A silent and misty #aurora over northern Russia. #spacevine https://t.co/crwMC1iThI

— Terry W. Virts (@AstroTerry) March 16, 2015

NASA, meanwhile, has chosen the 50th anniversary of Leonov's spacewalk to reveal tha the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) craft thinks it has spotted an aurora on the red planet.

NASA says MAVEN found “a bright ultraviolet auroral glow spanning Mars' northern hemisphere” and did so on the five days preceding Christmas 2014. Mars boffins say the aurora reached far deeper into the red planet's atmosphere than Earthly aurorae, suggesting lots of high-energy electrons are coming from somewhere to produce the glow.

MAVEN has also spotted a dust cloud high in Mars' atmosphere, at altitudes between 150km and 300km. The cloud's been present for as long as MAVEN's been in orbit, but scientists don't know if it is a temporary or permanent phenomenon. Nor does anyone know what causes it, as a dust cloud at the observed altitudes isn't predicted by models of Mars' weather or atmosphere. ®