People Are Calling This The Greatest Photo Ever Taken And... Yeah, I Think I Agree

Every once in a while the internet collectively looks at a single image and goes: Yep. That's it. We peaked. Shut it all down.
And this might actually be one of those moments.

First things first, because I know your brain is already screaming it: no, it's not AI. We're sure. This is a real human being, really falling through the sky, really silhouetted against the real sun. No CGI, no compositing, no trickery. Maybe a bit of editing to make the colors pop, but the core of it? Completely authentic.

This cosmic fever dream was captured by astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy, who teamed up with Gabriel Brown, a YouTuber skydiver scuba diver pilot paramotor goblin who apparently wakes up every morning and says: "What if today I did something absolutely unhinged but beautifully so."

McCarthy set up a series of telescopes in the desert. Brown went airborne on a paramotor. And then, with perfect timing, perfect alignment, and the kind of friendship built on impeccable trust and deeply questionable decisions, McCarthy radioed: Jump now.

Click.

What came out looks like the opening shot of a Christopher Nolan film about mankind, destiny, and a tiny human free falling toward a star. The photo is impossibly dramatic. It’s visually gorgeous. It’s scientifically wild. And it hits that perfect balance of cosmic insignificance and human audacity. We’re tiny, but look how brave and ridiculous we are anyway.

McCarthy himself laughed at how unreal it looks, calling it the “most preposterously fake looking real photo” he’s ever taken. Reddit agreed. The internet agreed. And honestly I agree too.

What I love is that it wasn’t luck. Months of planning. Precise solar mapping. A pilot carefully maneuvering out of frame. A jumper hitting the exact right spot. All so we could get one photo that makes you sit back and go: Wow. We really live on a planet full of weird little adventurers.

The full resolution version is available on McCarthy’s site, and he even lets you download it. Which is great, because this deserves to be a wallpaper, a poster, a coffee table print, and probably a motivational quote template.