Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner made history this week by leaping from ‘the edge of space’. In addition to breaking the skydiving world record – jumping from an altitude of 39 kilometres – Baumgartner also reached an incredible speed of 1342 kilometres per hour.
The rapid rate of descent meant Felix was the first human to break the sound barrier unaided by machine. This year is the 65th anniversary of Chuck Yeager becoming the first person to reach supersonic speeds in a plane.
Felix was assisted all the way by Joe Kittinger, who set the previous skydiving record in 1960, when he leapt from an altitude of 31 kilometres.
