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Journalism of Courage
For some people, the thought of floating in space can be liberating, for others, it can be unnerving. A photograph that evokes both these feelings has been going viral on social media.
The photo of astronaut Bruce McCandless II, in which he can be seen floating in the dark void of space as the blue surface of Earth looms under him, has enchanted netizens. The photo, taken almost four decades ago in February 1984, was clicked when McCandless II stepped out of the Challenger space shuttle to rehearse for a satellite-repair mission.
This was the first time an astronaut had walked in space while being untethered from the spacecraft.
According to a 1984 New York Times article, McCandless II was 170 mile (273.5 kilometre) above Earth’s surface when this photo was taken. The article says that McCandless II was orbiting Earth alongside his space shuttle at the speed of 17,500 mile an hour but due to the “virtual vacuum of space, he sensed nothing of his speed.”
The photo of McCandless II’s spacewalk was shared on Twitter by a popular science page that goes by the handle @Sciencenature14. While tweeting the photo, the Twitter page described it as “Perhaps the most-terrifying space photograph to date”. The tweet soon got over 1.5 lakh likes in just one day.
https://twitter.com/Sciencenature14/status/1538720322869936129
https://twitter.com/stevejetcity/status/1538990467211087872
https://twitter.com/Bruhsepheus/status/1539105838962556928
Commenting on it a Twitter user wrote, “If I was an astronaut I would do stuff like this for the sole purpose of taking photos for Instagram and captioning them like “In My Own Lane ”.
