William A. Anders, the astronaut behind perhaps the most iconic photograph of our planet, has died at the age of 90.
On Friday morning, Anders was piloting a small plane that crashed into the water near Roche Harbor, Washington. His son Greg His death confirmed,
Anders retired from the Air Force Reserve as a major general, but was a major at the time of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to orbit the Moon, making Anders one of the first people to go beyond the range of Earth orbit.
On Christmas Eve, all three Apollo crew members took photographs of the Earth rising over the Moon’s horizon, but Anders was the only one shooting on color film. Onboard tape recorder The astronaut was captured saying, “Oh my god, look at that picture over there! The Earth is coming up. Wow, that’s so beautiful!”
The resulting photograph, titled “Earthrise”, captured the Earth’s loneliness and fragility in a way no image ever had before. It was particularly symbolic for the nascent environmental movement—fifty years later, Kathleen Rodgers, president of the Earth Day Network, wrote The photo “reaffirmed” the movement’s belief that “the Earth’s environment belongs to all of us, that the Earth’s natural resources are finite, and that 150 years of unbridled industrial development are having a profound impact on our planet.”
In an interview In a study conducted in 2015, Anders found that his photo is even better remembered than the Apollo 8 mission.
He said, “We have come to the Moon to explore the Earth.”
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