Astronaut and climate scientist Piers Sellers dies at 61



PHOTOS: See more notable deaths of 2016 ... British-born American astronaut Piers Sellers, left, is shown with mission specialist Steve Bowen at the Kennedy Space Center in 2010.

PHOTOS: See more notable deaths of 2016 ... British-born American astronaut Piers Sellers, left, is shown with mission specialist Steve Bowen at the Kennedy Space Center in 2010. Photo: Marta Lavandier, AP Photo: Marta Lavandier, AP Image 1 of / 126 Caption Close Astronaut and climate scientist Piers Sellers dies at 61 1 / 126 Back to Gallery

NASA has lost another one of its stars.

Astronaut Piers Sellers died in Houston on Friday morning at age 61, NASA told the Associated Press. His death from pancreatic cancer comes two weeks after the passing of space pioneer John Glenn, 95.

Sellers gained fame late in life for his commentary about the earth's fragility and his own cancer diagnosis, according to the Associated Press.

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"(Sellers) was not in pain and his family was with him. A light has left our world. We will miss him so very much," Colleen Hartman, director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, wrote in a statement posted on the NASA Watch website, which provides news about the space agency.

"Please continue fighting the good fight and remembering the great times we had with the most amazing man in this world. We will never forget him," the statement said.

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The British-American meteorologist and astronaut was a veteran of three space shuttle missions. He appeared in Leonardo DiCaprio's 2016 climate-change documentary, "Before the Flood."

He started working for NASA as a scientist in 1982, the AP says. Sellers joined the astronaut corps in 1996 and flew to the International Space Station in 2002, 2006 and 2010, carrying out six spacewalks, his NASA bio reads.

Sellers was also deputy director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate and acting director of the Earth Sciences Division at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.