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For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

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New sharp images of Ceres from Dawn

The Lonely Mountain on Ceres/>

Cool image time! The Dawn science team has released new images of Ceres, including one of a single mountain they have dubbed the Lonely Mountain.

The mountain, located in the southern hemisphere, stands 4 miles (6 kilometers) high. Its perimeter is sharply defined, with almost no accumulated debris at the base of the brightly streaked slope with bright streaks. The image was taken on August 19, 2015. The resolution of the image is 450 feet (140 meters) per pixel.

I have cropped the image and posted it on the right. Be sure to look at the full resolution version. Not only does the mountain have no debris at its base, it truly is lonely. There are no similar features anywhere near it. It almost looks like someone took a shovel of material out of the ground to create the crater immediately to the south and then dumped that material to create the mountain.

Note that the mountain is more like a mesa, with a flat top, which suggests it is the remains of a higher elevation surface that eroded away in the distant past. The geological processes that could have done this however remain quite puzzling at this point.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

10 comments

  • Cotour

    Unrelated but Mars related:

    If this is a genuine NASA picture, what is this item? Forget the story, what is the item?

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/stars-wars-spaceship-mars-nasa-6312452

  • 1. There is no link to the image source. It is likely a Curiosity image, but with no easy way to see the original, this fact remains unconfirmed. Moreover, there is no way to check to see if it has been modified.

    2. Even if it is real and the object is real, it certainly isn’t a Star Wars ship. To think so is to push your fantasies to absurd limits. It looks to simply be an angular rock in which the angle of the light and shadows have help make it stand out. That’s all.

  • Cotour

    I said, forget the story (the “hook”). It is just a very interesting picture given the nature of the surrounding terrain and the object, if it is an original and un doctored picture.

    This is a modern problem, can we be sure of any information we have access to and who knows what is disinformation or a straight out prank ? This applies to the media in general and the government specifically.

    PS: I in general do not to indulge in fantasies.

  • Edward

    Cotour,

    The item in your linked photograph is a rock. I zoomed in, and it still looks like a rock.

    If you look around that photo, you can see all kinds of items. Even a dirt road.

    It is kind of like looking for images in clouds.

  • Cotour

    I zoomed in on it and it certainly does not look specifically like a rock typical to its surroundings. It is, what ever it is, rock or otherwise different. How can you say that? And I see no “dirt roads” either.

  • Edward

    The rock does not look like something (or anything) else. The shadows are not straight enough for it to be a spaceship (Star Wars or any other kind).

    The roadway is that squiggly path atop the ridge that is just above the clearly visible pair of tire tracks that are just above the rock that someone thinks is a Star Wars spaceship. And what about all those shuffling footprints (which look like they were made by Verbal in “The Usual Suspects”) just to the right of the tire tracks?

    All it takes is a little imagination, and you can see all kinds of things in that image. Apparently, a little imagination is too much imagination, for now I am seeing a bizarre, multi-legged, creepy-crawly, space-alien creature rearing its head and slithering down the hill, in that largish, dark, shadowy rock above the roadway. (I won’t be sleeping well tonight!)

  • Cotour

    The point of my comment that apparently evaded your detection is that manipulation and narrative related to pictures like the one I posted and other observed and recorded anomalies both here on this planet and on other worlds are becoming undetectable.

    With the level of technology that exists today and in the future it will be very hard indeed for the general public to detect what is real and what is being presented as real. And from that point of deception alternate realities can be fabricated and people can be manipulated.

  • Cotour

    To my point :)

    https://youtu.be/7mOxQghay9w

    How can we be sure?

  • I had thought I had posted this on BtB years ago, but can’t find it now. No matter, it is obvious evidence that we must accept at face value, without question. Anyone who expresses any doubts must be labeled a denier and should be silenced immediately.

  • Cotour

    In science as in politics, burn the witch!

    That chicken illustrates the point perfectly, I do remember seeing it somewhere, probably here.

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