Space photo
Emily Elert
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Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner set a new world record Sunday when he leapt from a capsule suspended 128,100 feet–about 24 miles–above Earth’s surface. Watching the livefeed as he opened the capsule door and prepared to jump, we thought he looked very much like a man perched on the edge of space.

But just how close to the edge was he?

To get a sense of Fearless Felix’s actual proximity to space, we charted the altitude of his incredible jump in relation to some other objects strewn in the space between us and the International Space Station:

(Click here to see a larger version.)

Space photo

Baumgartner In Space

_Credits: Clouds, Ian Image Library; Boeing 747, Eluveitie, via Wikimedia Commons; beaker, Silliusvia Open Clip Art; International Space Station, Ciniconoclasta via ClipArtsFree.net; meteors, [ via Open Clip Art
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