American astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy has achieved what may be the world's first photograph of its kind: a spectacular image showing a skydiver's silhouette against the highly detailed surface of the sun. The breathtaking photograph, titled "The Fall of Icarus," was captured in the Arizona desert and has since gone viral on social media platforms.
While the actual photograph took only a fraction of a second to capture, the project required months of preparation, technical precision, and a considerable amount of luck. McCarthy photographed his friend Gabriel Brown, a musician and experienced skydiver, using a specialized telescope equipped with a hydrogen-alpha filter that reveals surface details of the sun normally invisible to the naked eye.
The final image is actually a composite of multiple photographs. Although McCarthy captured the skydiver in a single shot, he combined numerous additional images of the sun to create a high-resolution mosaic that showcases the intricate surface details of our nearest star. Brown jumped from a paramotor - a powered parachute with a propeller - from an altitude of approximately one kilometer (about 3,280 feet).
The two friends coordinated the position and timing of the jump via radio communication, but they had only one opportunity to get the shot right. According to McCarthy, repacking the parachute would have taken too long, giving them just one attempt for the day. The photograph required an extremely long focal length and significant distance between the photographer and subject to make the skydiver appear proportionally small against the sun - approximately 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) separated them at the moment of capture.
McCarthy documented his work process in short clips on social media, which contributed to the image going viral. In one video, viewers can see the moment he first viewed the successful photograph on his camera screen. "You can see the excitement on my face in the video. Seeing the image perfectly displayed on the screen was truly satisfying," McCarthy said in an interview with Live Science.
This isn't McCarthy's first success in capturing rare solar phenomena. He has previously photographed the International Space Station (ISS) transiting the sun simultaneously with a solar storm in June, and captured a 1.6-kilometer-long plasma column erupting from the sun's surface. He also achieved a spectacular photograph of the moon at the precise moment Mars was occulted by it.
The "Fall of Icarus" photograph represents a remarkable fusion of astrophotography and action photography, demonstrating the possibilities when technical expertise meets creative vision and precise timing. The image continues to circulate widely on social media, inspiring both photography enthusiasts and space lovers worldwide.
