‘Earthrise’ astronaut William Anders, 90, dies in plane crash

Retired astronaut William Anders, who was one of the first three humans to orbit the moon, capturing the famed "Earthrise" photo during NASA's Apollo 8 mission in 1968, died on Friday in the crash of a small airplane in Washington state. He was 90.

Officials said a small aircraft he was flying crashed into the sea off Washington state.

Anders' son, Greg, confirmed that his father's body was recovered on Friday afternoon. "The family is devastated. He was a great pilot. He will be missed," a statement from the family reads.

Anders - who was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission - took the iconic Earthrise photograph, one of the most memorable and inspirational images of Earth from space.

Taken on Christmas Eve during the 1968 mission, the first crewed space flight to leave Earth and reach the Moon, the picture shows the planet rising above the horizon from the barren lunar surface.

Anders later described it as his most significant contribution to the space programme.

The image is widely credited with motivating the global environmental movement and leading to the creation of Earth Day, an annual event to promote activism and awareness of caring for the planet.

Speaking of the moment, Anders had said: "We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing that we discovered was the Earth."

Anders also served as the backup pilot to the Apollo 11 mission that led to the first Moon landing on July 24, 1969.

Following Anders' retirement from the space programme in 1969, the former astronaut largely worked in the aerospace industry for several decades. He also served as US Ambassador to Norway for a year in the 1970s.

NASA chief Bill Nelson paid tribute to Anders on social media with a post of the iconic image of Earth rising over the lunar horizon, saying, "In 1968, during Apollo 8, Bill Anders offered to humanity among the deepest of gifts an astronaut can give. He travelled to the threshold of the Moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves."