An astrophotographer has captured a spectacular shot of a falling skydiver perfectly aligned with the fiery surface of the sun, making it seem like the airborne adventurer is tumbling through the vacuum
of space in front of our home star.
Andrew McCarthy, an Arizona-based astrophotographer who specializes in photographing the sun, captured the unlikely photo on Saturday. The shot, dubbed “The Fall of Icarus,” required an “absolutely preposterous” level of planning and “might be the first photo of its kind in existence,” McCarthy wrote in a post on the social platform X.
“Immense planning and technical precision was required for this absolutely preposterous (but real) view: I captured my friend @BlackGryph0n transiting the sun during a skydive. This might be the first photo of it’s kind in existence. See a video of this moment in the reply,” McCarthy’s post reads,
“The moment of the jump, captured in hydrogen alpha light to resolve the sun’s atmosphere,” the post added.
The moment of the jump, captured in hydrogen alpha light to resolve the sun’s atmosphere.
We decided to release the photo in print- both as an up close shot and showing the full disc of the sun, which you can see here: https://t.co/K4DovGV4ni pic.twitter.com/hYHg7rZXdK
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy) November 13, 2025
The skydiver in the image was the YouTuber and musician Gabriel C. Brown, who jumped from a small propeller-powered craft at an altitude of around 3,500 feet (1,070 meters), around 8,000 feet (2,440 m) from McCarthy’s camera. Brown shared several behind-the-scenes photos of the shoot in an Instagram post, including a video of him and McCarthy celebrating the shot.
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