Burkhard Bilger paints an amazing image of what it must be like to skydive from the stratosphere in his riveting piece (in this week's New Yorker) about a Frenchman's attempt to break the world record for highest skydive.

The following video captures it even more so, with footage shot by Joe Kittinger, the man who broke the record for highest skydive back in 1960 when he stepped out of his hot air balloon 19 miles above the Earth. With his camera he filmed what is clearly the blackness of space as he plummeted through the thin, freezing cold atmosphere at a 600 miles per hour.

Wow.