The photo-sharing social network is notorious for “selfies” — photos taken of oneself, usually with a cellphone at arm’s length, often in front of well-known backgrounds like the Eiffel Tower.

Nearly 16,000 people have paid $29 apiece for a more celestial shot — a “Space Selfie,” in which an orbiting space telescope will photograph its own external screen displaying the buyer’s picture, with the Earth in the background.

The photos are part of a $1.5 million Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign by Planetary Resources, a Bellevue company backed by a group of billionaires to pursue space exploration and asteroid mining for precious minerals.