Andrew McCarthy, an Arizona astrophotographer, captured a remarkable image on Nov. 8 that makes YouTuber Gabriel C. Brown appear to fall across the Sun. The shot, titled "The Fall of Icarus," required six alignment attempts and only one jump to succeed. Brown leapt from about 3,500 ft (1,070 m) while McCarthy photographed from roughly 8,000 ft (2,440 m) away. McCarthy calls the planning "absolutely preposterous" and ranks the image among his top five career photos.
Astrophotographer Captures 'The Fall of Icarus' — Skydiver Appears to Tumble Across the Sun
Andrew McCarthy, an Arizona astrophotographer, captured a remarkable image on Nov. 8 that makes YouTuber Gabriel C. Brown appear to fall across the Sun. The shot, titled "The Fall of Icarus," required six alignment attempts and only one jump to succeed. Brown leapt from about 3,500 ft (1,070 m) while McCarthy photographed from roughly 8,000 ft (2,440 m) away. McCarthy calls the planning "absolutely preposterous" and ranks the image among his top five career photos.
07:20 AM, 11/15/2025Science
Astrophotographer captures a near-impossible solar alignment
An Arizona-based astrophotographer, Andrew McCarthy, captured a striking image on Nov. 8 that makes YouTuber and musician Gabriel C. Brown appear to fall across the Sun's bright disk. McCarthy, who specializes in solar photography, titled the shot "The Fall of Icarus" and said the image required an "absolutely preposterous" level of planning. He suggested it "might be the first photo of its kind in existence." The photograph was taken at about 9 a.m. MST (11 a.m. EST).
Brown jumped from a small propeller plane at roughly 3,500 feet (about 1,070 meters) above ground while McCarthy photographed from a position approximately 8,000 feet (about 2,440 meters) away. McCarthy posted a video on X showing the exact moment Brown left the aircraft and several clips of the team celebrating the successful capture.
"You can see the excitement on my face in the videos," McCarthy told Live Science. "Seeing it perfectly captured on my monitors was exhilarating."
The image was captured on the single jump they were able to perform that day. Although weeks of meticulous preparation preceded the shoot, lining the aircraft and jumper against the narrow solar disk required six alignment attempts before the final run. Because safely repacking a parachute would have taken too long, they effectively had only one real opportunity to photograph the actual jump.
McCarthy said the biggest challenge was reliably tracking the small aircraft through the sky within a very narrow field of view. "Capturing the sun is something I'm quite familiar with, but this added new challenges," he said. The result is one of McCarthy's favorite images; he ranks it among the top five shots of his career.
Other recent solar achievements
- Photograph of the International Space Station transiting in front of a solar flare.
- An image showing a SpaceX rocket crossing the solar disk.
- Pioneering shots from earlier work, including a roughly 1-million-mile-long (1.6 million km) plasma plume, ultra-high-definition lunar images, and Mars being eclipsed by the Moon.
McCarthy emphasized that the photo's rarity came from the precise flight path, the exact timing with the Sun's position, and the narrow photographic frame — a combination that made the shot exceptionally difficult to achieve. Behind-the-scenes photos and video of the jump are available on the photographer's social channels.