A senior vice president for Google cut himself loose from a balloon and parachuted 135,908 feet to earth on Friday, setting a new world record in skydiving.
Alan Eustace, 57, broke the previous record holder’s jump by more than 7,000 feet, the New York Times reports. It took roughly 2 hours for Eustace to make the ascent into the stratosphere and only 15 minutes to plummet back to earth. He made the jump wearing a spacesuit specially designed to withstand extreme altitudes and speeds topping 800 miles-per-hour. Witnesses on the ground reported hearing a sonic boom.
“It was beautiful,” Eustace said after the jump. “You could see the darkness of space and you could see the layers of atmosphere, which I had never seen before.”
[NYT]
More Must-Reads From TIME
- The 100 Most Influential People of 2024
- The Revolution of Yulia Navalnaya
- 6 Compliments That Land Every Time
- What's the Deal With the Bitcoin Halving?
- If You're Dating Right Now , You're Brave: Column
- The AI That Could Heal a Divided Internet
- Fallout Is a Brilliant Model for the Future of Video Game Adaptations
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time
Contact us at letters@time.com