We are going to close our live coverage here, thank you for following. We'll leave you with some of David Bowie's own words, spoken to graduating music students at Berklee College, Massachusetts, in 1999.

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Astronaut Chris Hadfield, who recorded a hugely popular cover of Bowie's Space Oddity on the International Space Station, spoke to the BBC about his affection for the singer.

Commander Hadfield said that when people heard there was a musician on board the ISS there was a clamour on social media for him to record a version of Space Oddity. You can watch his hugely popular recording below.

Image source, AP

Someone brought a guitar to the mural in Brixton, south London, where David Bowie grew up, where crowds have been laying flowers during the day, and started impromptu singalong of hits including Ziggy Stardust, Changes and Starman.

There was a celebratory atmosphere in some parts of the crowd, while others were in tears, being comforted with hugs.

The crowd was a mixture of locals walking past on their way from work and fans who had made a pilgrimage. Some brought candles and held them up in the dark night sky.

BBC Radio 5 live listener Alan describes the experience of hearing David Bowie's Starman when it was performed for the first time.

Bowie performed with his band - including guitarist Mick Ronson - when he was in his Ziggy Stardust phase.

Speaking to 5 live's Rachel Burden, Alan said the audience comprised of just 35 people, and that Bowie was the "most charming man".

The death of David Bowie has, unsurprisingly, dominated social media today.

Tweets about the Starman singer peaked at 20,000 a minute in the hour after his death was announced at 0700 GMT.  

The most tweeted about of his songs today is his 1977 song Heroes.

Madonna has paid tribute to Bowie in a message posted to her Facebook page.

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BBC Radio 4

Author and scriptwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce has told the BBC that what made David Bowie great was the fact that, despite the occasional creative misfire, he always managed to revive his career in the most dramatic way. 

"If you are true to your genius, then sometimes it will throw you over a waterfall," he told Radio 4's PM programme. "But then you'll bob back up again, as long as you keep faith in yourself."

Bowie's record company has put out a statement, saying it was "an honour" to release his music.

Dana Gillespie was a former girlfriend of Bowie and sang on some of his tracks, including It Ain't Easy from the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars.

She told BBC Radio 5 Live: "He always wanted to be a kind of blaze of glory and stardust - this he has become."

The Bowie exhibition at London's V&A Museum back in 2013 was a sell-out. It showed how, in the 1970s, David Bowie's passport to fame was his daringly ambiguous sexuality. But did appearances deceive?

Read more.

Famil Ismailov
News editor, BBC Russian Service

Image source, Reuters

David Bowie gave just one concert in Russia in 1996. It was a flop. Wrong venue - the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, wrong audience - the first rows were filled with new Russia's rich and former party apparatchiks with stony faces. 

According to legend, Bowie (pictured above in Athens in '96) was so shocked that he promised not to perform in Russia again.

They were unable to understand the words and didn't get the music. Bowie was one of the Western rock musicians deemed unsuitable for Soviet audiences with his orange hair and strange lyrics. However, his music was played in discotheques all over the Soviet Union by the end of 1980s and his music had a defining influence on leading rock musicians of Russia.

He was copied, loved and revered by a generation of young Russians who saw him as a rebel who invented his own music form.

To some, David Bowie was a genuis. To others, he remains a glorious mystery.

Here are some of his own thoughts in his own words.

Madonna has put a heartfelt statement about Bowie's influence on Facebook, external:

BBC Radio 5 Live

Human League founder Martyn Ware told BBC Radio 5 live: [Bowie] symbolised not only the glamour of popular music, but his career was really one of an artist rather than just a musician."

Big names in LA have woken up to the news of Bowie's death and sent their tributes, from Ringo Starr to Kendrick Lamar to Justin Bieber - showing how far Bowie's influence reached.

And Annie Lennox wrote on Facebook, external:

Musician Peter Frampton, who knew Bowie at school and went on to play guitar with him many times, has called the star a "dear friend and mentor" in his Twitter tribute.

The BBC has announced it is broadcasting a number of programmes paying tribute to David Bowie throughout the day.

Listen live or catch them on iPlayer.

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Take risks and be subversive are two of them.

Read the rest on the BBC Music site.

Brett Anderson, who was influenced by Bowie's 70s glam scene, said in a statement:

"I had the pleasure of meeting David several times and he was always so charming and warm. To say he was a great artist is a lumpen understatement; his songs became the furniture of mine and so many people's lives and helped write the book of pop music itself. 

"We are all far poorer without him."