CHENNAI: Astronaut Sunita Williams, who recently announced her retirement from NASA, was part of the inauguration of the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode on Thursday.

Actors Bhavana Menon, Prakash Raj, Kerala Tourism Minister PA Mohammed Riyas, Tamil Nadu IT Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan, Olympian Ben Johnson, and writers K Satchidanandan, Paul Zacharia, and M Mukundan were also part of the opening ceremony. The four-day literature festival will see multiple celebrities talking about various books and issues.

Actor Bhavana shared pictures from the event, saying, "This moment gonna be etched in my brain forever!! Sharing stage with such distinguished inspiring personalities."

The astronaut will be part of multiple events through the course of the festival, including an interactive children's session titled, 'Once Upon a Time...In Space'. She will also be part of a talk with journalist Barkha Dutt called 'Astronaut's Odyssey'.

Williams retired from her 27-year-long career as an astronaut, where she logged 608 days in space. She also completed nine spacewalks totalling up to 62 hours and 6 minutes, clocking the most spacewalks by a woman. Talking about her stint as an astronaut, Williams said that while she will miss going to the moon, she is also looking forward to exploring the places on Earth that she peeked at from the sky.