William Anders, the astronaut who took the famous “Earthrise” photo, has died at the age of 90.

William A. Anders, the astronaut who created perhaps the most iconic photo of our planet, has died at the age of 90.

On Friday morning, Anders piloted a small plane that dove into the water near the Port of Roche, Washington. His son Greg confirmed his death.

Anders retired from the Air Force Reserve as a serious general, but was a serious on the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to lunar orbit, making Anders one of the first people to depart the confines of Earth’s orbit .

On Christmas Eve, all three Apollo crew members took photos of the Earth rising above the lunar horizon, but Anders was the just one shooting on color film. Relationships on-board tape recorder he captured the astronaut shouting, “Oh my God, look at this picture! Earth is coming. Wow, that’s so pretty!”

The resulting photograph, titled “Earthrise,” captured the loneliness and fragility of the Earth in a way that had never been seen before in any photograph. This was particularly typical of the emerging environmental movement – fifty years later, Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network he wrote the photo “confirmed” the movement’s belief “that the Earth’s environment is common to all of us, that the Earth’s natural resources are finite, and that 150 years of unfettered industrial development have had a profound impact on our planet.”

IN interview conducted in 2015, Anders noticed that his photo appeared to be higher remembered than the Apollo 8 mission itself.

“Here we went all the way to the Moon to discover Earth,” he said.