AP PHOTOS: Skydiver's supersonic, 24-mile jump

AAA??Oct. 14, 2012?10:01 PM ET
AP PHOTOS: Skydiver's supersonic, 24-mile jump
By The Associated Press??By The Associated Press

This image made from video, provided by Red Bull Stratos shows pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria as he jumps out of the capsule during the final manned flight for Red Bull Stratos on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012. In a giant leap from more than 24 miles up, Baumgartner shattered the sound barrier Sunday while making the highest jump ever ? a tumbling, death-defying plunge from a balloon to a safe landing in the New Mexico desert. (AP Photo/Red Bull Stratos)

This image made from video, provided by Red Bull Stratos shows pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria as he jumps out of the capsule during the final manned flight for Red Bull Stratos on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012. In a giant leap from more than 24 miles up, Baumgartner shattered the sound barrier Sunday while making the highest jump ever ? a tumbling, death-defying plunge from a balloon to a safe landing in the New Mexico desert. (AP Photo/Red Bull Stratos)

This image provided by Red Bull Stratos shows pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria as he jumps out of the capsule during the final manned flight for Red Bull Stratos on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012. In a giant leap from more than 24 miles up, Baumgartner shattered the sound barrier Sunday while making the highest jump ever ? a tumbling, death-defying plunge from a balloon to a safe landing in the New Mexico desert. (AP Photo/Red Bull Stratos)

This image taken from a video monitor, provided by Red Bull Stratos, shows pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria before he jumps out of the capsule during the final manned flight for Red Bull Stratos on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012. In a giant leap from more than 24 miles up, Baumgartner shattered the sound barrier Sunday while making the highest jump ever ? a tumbling, death-defying plunge from a balloon to a safe landing in the New Mexico desert. (AP Photo/Red Bull Stratos, Jay Nemeth)

Felix Baumgartner, third from left, of Austria, gets a hug from Mission Control technical project director Art Thompson, as television crews and pool photographers converge on the scene, after Baumgartner successfully jumped from a space capsule lifted by a helium balloon at a height of just over 128,000 feet above the Earth's surface, Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012, in Roswell, N.M.(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Art Thompson, right, Mission Control technical project director, hugs Ava Baumgartner, second from right, as Lisa Fuerst, second from left, hugs a family friend, after Felix Baumgartner, of Austria, successfully jumped from a space capsule lifted by a helium balloon at a height of just over 128,000 feet above the Earth's surface, Sunday, Oct. 14, 2012, in Roswell, N.M.(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner became the first skydiver to break the speed of sound in a 24-mile-high jump from a balloon on Sunday, reaching 833.9 mph in a free fall that lasted some 9 minutes.

Landing on his feet in the New Mexico desert, the man known as "Fearless Felix" lifted his arms in victory to the cheers of onlookers and friends.

"When I was standing there on top of the world, you become so humble, you do not think about breaking records anymore, you do not think about gaining scientific data," he said after the jump. "The only thing you want is to come back alive."

"Sometimes we have to get really high to see how small we are," an exuberant Baumgartner told reporters outside mission control after safely returning to Earth.

Here's a gallery of photos from Baumgartner's leap into the record books.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2012-10-14-US-Supersonic%20Skydiver-Photo-Gallery/id-dfd8ee20a8724514bc1434ec2cbec69b

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