“The Fall of Icarus”. Gabriel C. Brown crossing the Earth’s atmosphere in front of the Sun in an unprecedented photograph.
“I got it, man!” Andrew McCarthy did his thing again, this time, against the chromosphere and in free fall. Here is “The Fall of Icarus”.
It may seem like a complete ‘puppet’ created in photoshop or by AI, but this photograph is real. It was captured by the astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy and “it could be the first photo of this type” ever, himself on social media.
First of all, let’s clarify the “absolutely absurd (but real)” image we see here: a parachutist free-falling in front of the solar disk, in a now eternal moment that translates into a humble human silhouette on the gigantic and incandescent surface of the Sun.
“It is possible that it is the first photo ever of a human in free fall captured against the chromosphere”, says the astrophotographer.
The capture was taken in hydrogen-alpha light, which reveals fiery details that could never be seen under normal white light. It was achieved with the help of multiple telescopes strategically placed in the desert, and is also the result of meticulous planning that required several days of work and many failed attempts. The hardest part was aligning all the elements and ensuring the perfect capture in a very, very narrow window of time.
The plan was drawn up: the parachutist, musician and protagonist of the photo,Gabriel C. Brownwould jump from a small propeller plane, at an altitude of approximately 1,070 meters, at a time coordinated by three-way communications.
The pilot helped to position the aircraft with precision, but in addition to aligning the drop point, it was also necessary to ensure that the jump altitude, the plane’s trajectory, the position and angle of the Sun and the location of the telescope ‘joined hands’, while the parachutist and the camera were at a distance of two kilometers from each other.
On November 8th, at nine in the morning, it happened: six attempts Afterwards, the photograph that received the name of “A Queda de Icaro”, a reference to the son of Daedalus from Greek mythology, who was famous for flying close to the Sun with wings made of feathers and wax.
“Oh my god! I got it, man!”
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:
— Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy)
Below, the complete photograph:
McCarthy was previously famous for his extremely detailed astrophotography. In 2022, it was responsible for capturing a coronal mass ejection approximately one billion kilometers long; in collaboration with planetary scientist Connor Matherne, produced a very high-resolution portrait of the visible lunar face, the result of a compilation of 200,000 images collected over almost two years. This year I had also photographed a solar flare “photobombing” the International Space Station (ISS), then around 400 kilometers from Earth, after passing in front of our star in 2019.
We’ll see what the astrophotographer creates next.
Tomás Guimarães, ZAP //
