Hundreds of David Bowie stamps quite literally fell to earth from the sky

A space oddity.

David Bowie was The Man Who Fell to Earth and now he has quite literally just done that, in the most peculiar way.

In homage to the late singer, who died in January 2016, Royal Mail has launched special 10-stamp sets into the sky.

The stamps feature images of Bowie's best loved album covers and on stage.

52 sets in total (the same number of years of Bowie's professional recording career) were attached to helium balloons with cameras, just like Bowie's character in that movie.

When the balloons burst, after reaching 34,100m at a speed of about 12mph, the stamps began descending at nearly 200mph.

It's a fitting tribute to the star who sang about the depths of outer space in many of his songs and featured in the 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The Royal Mail stamps were all postmarked with a special edition red handstamp of the thunderbolt from the cover of Bowie’s 1973 record Aladdin Sane.

On the contest website, you can enter a competition to try to guess where the stamps landed. Those who get it right are entered into a draw where the prize is one of the sets.

The stars certainly look very different today:

Via Giphy
Mashable Potato

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