A window into space through NASA's online sensation

Astronaut Reid Wiseman is getting used to life back on Earth after recently returning from 166 days in orbit. In between space walks and research, Wiseman shared a remarkable view from the International Space Station. He picked up 330,000 followers on Twitter before landing in Kazakhstan last week.

"This was my first space flight, so I'd never looked down on the Earth from 260 miles up, and when you do that the first couple times, you're taken to a special place," Wiseman told "CBS This Morning" from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "You're breathless, really, just looking out at the horizon is so beautiful."

It was that beauty that led him to begin his social media campaign.

"You have this extreme desire to share it," Wiseman said. "And I was lucky enough to have a conduit to share this journey with everyone, and it really caught fire and it was great. It was great for me, and I'm really happy it happened that way."

Among the scenes he captured were sunsets, typhoons and pyramids, but he shared his most memorable sight on nearly every platform, sending out multiple Vines, Instagram posts, and Tweets.

"Really I think the aurora and lightning storms, just watching how amazing that event is, just kind of flying through the swimming aurora," Wiseman said. "And we saw some really powerful aurora, much more than my fellow astronauts have been able to see, so we were just super lucky."

He said some of the most extraordinary things about being in space were watching changes on Earth from an entirely knew perspective.

"Doing all the science is amazing, and then any spare time you have, you get to go down to the greatest window humanity has ever known and look back at our planet," Wiseman said. "Just watching our planet over an entire six months, watching summer turn to winter, seeing the aurora thunderstorms, it's just, it's magnificent, it really is magnificent."

Even adjusting to life on the ISS was an experience for him.

"Being weightless, trying to learn, watching your body change while you're up there," he said.

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A window into space through NASA's online sensation