(Washington) Astronaut William Anders, member of the Apollo 8 mission and author of the legendary “Earthrise” photograph, died Friday at age 90 in a plane crash, his son announced to CNN.
“My father died in a plane crash in the San Juan Islands,” at the northwestern tip of the United States, his son Gregory Anders told the American television channel.
William Anders marked space exploration with an emblematic photo, “Earthrise”, taken during the Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit the Moon.
In this photograph from Christmas Eve 1968, the blue planet stands out from the darkness, with the lunar surface in the foreground.
He “gave humanity one of the most precious gifts an astronaut can give. He traveled to the edge of the moon and helped us all see something else: ourselves,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote on X. “He will be missed.”
William Anders “forever changed our view of our planet and ourselves with his famous photo […] He inspired me and generations of astronauts,” reacted former NASA astronaut and US Senator Mark Kelly on the same social network.
The Apollo 8 mission took off in December 1968 with William Anders and two other astronauts, Frank Borman and James Lovell, on board.
Before becoming an astronaut, William Anders served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army.
Earlier Friday, local authorities said an older model plane crashed late in the morning near the coast of one of the San Juan Islands in the US state of Washington. An investigation has been opened to determine the circumstances of this accident.
County Sheriff Eric Peter told AFP that teams were searching the area but had not yet found any bodies.
