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 plunged into the water near the port of Roche, Washington. His son Greg confirmed his death.
Anders retired from the Air Force Reserve as a major general, but was a senior at the time of the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to orbit the moon, which also made Anders a one of the first people to abandon it. the limits of the Earth's orbit.
On Christmas Eve, the three members of the Apollo crew took photographs of the Earth as it rose above the moon's horizon, but Anders was the only one who shot on color film. The ships onboard recorder It captured the astronaut exclaiming, “Oh my God, look at that photo over there! There is the Earth rising. Wow, how cute!
The resulting photograph, titled “Earthrise,” captured the loneliness and fragility of the Earth in a way no image had done before. It was particularly iconic for the nascent environmental movement: fifty years later, Earth Day Network president Kathleen Rogers. wrote that photo “confirmed” the movement's conviction “that the Earth's environment was common to all of us, that the Earth's natural resources were finite, and that 150 years of unrestricted industrial development were having a profound impact on our planet.” “.
In an interview Taken in 2015, Anders noted that his photo seemed better remembered than the Apollo 8 mission itself.
“Here we came to the Moon to discover the Earth,” he said.
