To read this post please scroll down.

 

Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Looking down into a Jupiter hurricane

Looking down into a Jupiter hurricane
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was created by citizen scientists Kevin Gill and Navaneeth Krishnan from a raw image taken by Juno during its 40th close fly-by of Jupiter in February 2022.

I don’t have a scale, but I would guess that this storm is at least a thousand miles across. The depth is harder to measure, but we looking down into a deep whirlpool for sure.

To bring out the details Gill and Krishnan enhanced the colors significantly. The original is quite bland in comparison, with this storm being the faint dark spot just below the center near the photo’s left edge.

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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

  • Ian C.

    That’s like a surreal high-on-drugs 1950s painting. Awesome.

  • GaryMike

    The technology currently does not exist to also see the sharks swirling about.

  • Call Me Ishmael

    “… the sharks swirling about”

    Actually …

    Are you sure that isn’t the eye of a giant squid? I mean a really, really giant squid?

  • GaryMike

    Occam’s Razor: Do not multiply complexities unnecessarily.

    Squid(s) are not documented to be associated with tornadoes. Frogs, or fish, sometimes. Flying monkeys, once.

  • Blackwing1

    “Ah…” (yawn) “Just another amazing image from our robots exploring the solar system.”

  • GaryMike

    Dilbert cartoon alert: https://assets.amuniversal.com/e1bb47c08db4013a9f54005056a9545d

    Be safe. Don’t click on the link. Paste it into your browser address window. Or not.

    Or, just go to https://dilbert.com/

  • Jeff Wright

    Lovecraftian

  • GaryMike

    Are you suspecting Robert Zimmerman’s quiet hosting is disguising nefarious intent?

    Maybe he’s the AI’s simulation of a website’s “Moderator”.

    Or maybe something more different (Zappa reference.)

  • ‘I went down, down, down; into a swirling ring of destruction

    I went down, down, down; into a monstrous construction.’

    A very cool image.

  • Spectrum Shift

    Thank you RZ for bringing us these “cool image time”s. I remember my first view of Jupiter using a drug store telescope. I was thrilled at the time, that I could see a small white disc (smudge actually) with four moons, lined up at the equator. These images today are “out of this world”, pun intended!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *