Astronaut William A. Anders, who took perhaps the most iconic photos of our planet, has died at the age of 90.
On Friday morning, Anders was piloting a small plane into the ocean near Port Roche, Washington. His son Greg confirmed his death.
Anders retired as a major general in the Air Force Reserves, but was a major during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to orbit the Moon, making Anders one of the first to leave. Boundaries of Earth's orbit.
On Christmas Eve, all three Apollo crew members took pictures of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon, but Anders was the only one to do so on color film. A tape recorder onboard the spacecraft captured the astronaut exclaiming, “Oh my God, look at that picture over there!” Earth is coming. Wow, it’s really pretty!”
The resulting photo, titled “Earthrise,” captured the loneliness and vulnerability of our planet in a way never before seen in any image. It was a particularly emblematic symbol of the early environmental movement. Fifty years later, Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network, said the photo showed that “the Earth's environment is common to all of us, the Earth's natural resources are finite, and 150 years of unfettered industrial development have brought tremendous benefits to the Earth.” “It has had an impact.”
In a 2015 interview, Anders noted that his photos were perhaps more memorable than the Apollo 8 mission itself.
“We came all the way to the moon to discover Earth,” he said.
