Ghostly figure floats on the edge of space in eerie new photos

TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say The team, a collective known as the Dorothy Project, sent the human silhouette miles above the Earth in the name of art.The project partnered with Taroni, an Italian silk-weaving company, for Mission Taroni, which intends to provoke the overview effect in viewers, the name for the awe-inspiring experience reported by astronauts.They also seek to examine the relationship between art and science and invites us to rethink our relationship to creation and ask how, in shaping matter, we also shape our way of seeing life and our planet.The Dorothy Project pointed to art and science being intrinsically linked at the height of the Renaissance, and said Mission Taroni seeks to renew a lost dialogue between the two disciplines.To make the floating figure, the Dorothy Project built a lightweight mannequin and wrapped it in silk.A weather balloon of biodegradable latex was then attached to the sculpture.It was filmed used an Insta360 camera, painted with a thermal coating to protect it from the sun's rays and cold conditions.The weather balloon reached approximately a third of the way to space, hitting an altitude of 20.5 miles.The mannequin and silk wrappings weighed only 700 grams in total in order to ease its ascent to the upper edges of our atmosphere.LATEST SPACE NEWS:Artemis II astronaut steals moon mascot from Nasa after breaking protocolScientists sound alarm as Earth flies through Sun-ravaged asteroid debrisHuge green fireball confirmed as meteor after flying through night sky over BritainIts light weight also allows it to comply with safety regulations over objects in space to minimise risk if they plummet to Earth.The wires and rigging suspending the mannequin were edited out of the footage, to make it appear as if the mannequin floated high above Earth alone.The sky above Mission Taroni appears dark despite being within the atmosphere, as 99 per cent of air molecules are below it.A weather balloon can reach about three times higher than an average commercial passenger plane.The Mission Taroni creators said: By superimposing this ghostly silhouette onto the planet, our only habitat, and the infinite blackness of space, we create an image that transcends aesthetics and invites reflection on our place in the universe.This dizzying contrast between the ephemeral nature of the body and the Earth, the result of 3.5 billion years of evolution, reminds us of our cosmic insignificance as well as our collective responsibility toward living beings.Last year, the Dorothy Project undertook Mission Stratos with the backing of the Canadian Space Agency and the French Space Agency.For this, they constructed Dorothy 8, a specialised camera designed to capture high-definition 360-degree video from the stratosphere.The project was founded in 2017 by artist and engineer Mathieu Baptista. Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter