Space made Scott Kelly taller and younger, as if he wasn’t already Mr. Popular

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly has returned to Earth a changed man: he's both taller and younger. Sure, those aren’t the health changes NASA is studying. The space agency is mostly concerned with how the fluids shifted inside Kelly's body, if his immune system is okay, and if he lost too much bone and muscle mass during flight. But this has to be the first time science has beaten Goop to an expensive cosmetic treatment that most people will never access.

Yes, Kelly's trip to the ISS made him about 2 inches taller, according to a NASA spokesperson. Since there's no gravity in space pulling down on the human body, the spine can stretch out up to 3 inches longer than it was before flight. That means if Kelly were to stand next to his identical twin, Mark, he would probably get to gloat. His new height is temporary — gravity is going to drag him back down to size eventually — so Kelly should enjoy his newfound stature as long as he can.

Sign me up for the next trip to the station, because space is by far the best plastic surgeon

If that weren't enough, Kelly is actually a little less than 1/100th of a second younger than he would have been if he stayed on Earth. The explanation for that’s a little tricky and it has to do with Einstein’s theory of general relativity. If two objects are moving at different speeds, time runs more quickly for the slower object — a phenomenon called time dilation. Kelly has been moving much faster than us here on Earth for a while now: the International Space Station travels at around 17,000 miles per hour relative to our planet. If you factor in the 340 days Kelly spent on the ISS, that means he is now roughly 8.6 milliseconds younger, according to calculations by Quartz.

Well that's just great, isn't it? Scott Kelly was already popular enough. He got to talk on the phone with President Obama yesterday from his own private seat in an airplane! Now he's taller and younger? Sign me up for the next trip to the station, because space is by far the best plastic surgeon.

Sure, Kelly also had exposure to a much higher dose of radiation than we'll likely ever experience in our lifetimes, and he didn't get to shower for a year — but those are only minor sacrifices in the pursuit of youth and beauty.

• SourceQuartz CNN