Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy has captured a surreal, once-in-a-lifetime image that makes it appear as if a skydiver is plunging straight past the blazing surface of the sun.
The stunt involved YouTuber and musician Gabriel C. Brown jumping from a small aircraft at roughly 3,500 feet while McCarthy positioned his solar telescope so the falling silhouette would line up perfectly with the sun’s disk, a setup that took multiple test flights to get right.
The final photograph, titled “The Fall of Icarus,” was taken last Saturday, and shows the skydiver’s figure sharply outlined against the sun’s fiery texture, captured in hydrogen-alpha light.
McCarthy called the feat “absolutely preposterous” and suggested the shot may be the first time a skydiver has ever been photographed in frame with the sun in this way.
