Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy caught the precise moment when our star literally aligned with a falling skydiver, resulting in an "absolutely preposterous (but real) view" of a human silhouetted against the Sun's detailed fiery surface.

The creative first took "immense planning", McCarthy wrote on X, adding, "This might be the first photo of [its] kind in existence."

This included lining up the angle of the Sun, skydiving position, exit altitude, ground distance, and telescope distance, all at the same precise time.

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After six failed attempts at alignment, the Arizona-based photographer and his collaborator, skydiver and musician Gabriel C. Brown, finally created the image they envisioned, on Sunday 8 November 2025, at 0900 local time.

Brown jumped from a small propeller-powered aircraft at an altitude of 1,070 meters (around 3,500 feet).

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I still can't believe we pulled this off!!" Brown wrote on his Instagram.

"We had to find the right location, time, aircraft, and distance for the clearest shot; while factoring in the aircraft's power-off glideslope for the optimal Sun angle and safe exit altitude. Then we had to align the shot using the opposition effect from the aircraft (shout out to the pilot @jimhamberlin) and coordinate the exact moment of the jump on 3-way coms!"

McCarthy is renowned for his ridiculously detailed astrophotography. In 2022, he captured a million-mile-long coronal mass ejection erupting from the Sun.

A CME ejected by the sun.
A false-color composite image of a coronal mass ejection, measuring around 1 million miles in length. (Andrew McCarthy)

In collaboration with planetary scientist Connor Matherne, he also managed to capture the various nooks and crannies of the Moon's Earth-facing surface.

This took 200,000 images compiled over almost two years.

Detailed image of the Moon tinged red and gunmetal blue, illuminated by light on the black backdrop of space.
A 174 megapixel image of the Moon. (Andrew McCarthy and Connor Matherne)

Earlier this year, McCarthy caught the intricacies of a solar flare photobombing the International Space Station.

 

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A post shared by Andrew McCarthy (@cosmic_background)

In this case, the station was 400 kilometers above Earth's surface, far closer than the Sun's position, almost 150 million kilometers away.

McCarthy took such vast distances between his subjects even further in his latest masterpiece, with his skydiving friend only 2 kilometers away from the camera. This relative proximity provided only fleeting moments for McCarthy to capture Brown tumbling across the Sun.

We're keen to see what McCarthy has to show us next.

You can follow McCarthy on Instagram, X, Facebook, and his website.