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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for this website, Behind the Black, is now over. Despite a relatively weak initial three weeks, the last week was spectacular, making this campaign the second best ever.

 

Thanks to every person who donated or subscribed. It continues to astonish me that people who can read my work for free like it enough to donate money voluntarily. Words cannot express my appreciation for that support, especially in these uncertain times.

 

If you have been a regular reader and a fan of my work and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider doing so. I take no ads, I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands (most of the time). Thus, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. 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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

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5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
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Rover update: Panorama from Curiosity; Perseverance unwinds

Summary: Curiosity has crept to the foot of Mt Sharp at last, while Perseverance checks out its equipment.

Curiosity

Curiosity panorama Sol 3049
Click for full resolution.

Overview map

This rover update will be short but very sweet. While the press and public has been oo’ing and ah’ing over the first panorama from Perseverance, Curiosity yesterday produced its own panorama above showing the looming cliffs of Mt. Sharp, now only a short distance away. The original images can be found here, here, here, and here.

The overview map to the right, from the “Where is Curiosity?” webpage, shows the rover’s location, with the yellow lines roughly indicating the view afforded by the panorama above. If you compare this panorama with the one I posted in my previous rover update on February 12, 2021, you can get a sense of how far the rover has traveled in just the past two weeks. It now sits near the end of the red dotted line pointing at the mountain, right next to what had been a distant cliff and now is only a short distance to the rover’s right.

Somewhere on the mountain slopes ahead scientists have spotted in orbiter images recurring slope lineae, seasonal streaks on slopes that appear in the spring and fade as they year passes. As Curiosity arrives at the next geological layer a short distance ahead at the base of these cliffs (dubbed the sulfate unit), it will spend probably several months studying both that sulfate unit as well as those lineae. Expect the rover to drill a few holes for samples as it watches to see any changes that might occur on that lineae.

Now, on to Perseverance!

Perseverance

Looking west in Perseverance's 1st hi-res panorama
Click for full resolution image.

The rover’s science and engineering team continue to check out the rover’s systems as they prepare for its first test drive inside Jezero Crater. They have unfolded the rover’s robot arm for the first time and have begun the testing of its many instruments, including its drill.

The image above is a slice from the rover’s first high resolution panorama, looking west across the rocky floor of Jezero Crater. The low hills in the foreground are the front cliffs of the delta that poured through a gap in the crater’s rim sometime in the far past. The high hills are the crater’s western rim.

Eventually Perseverance will travel to that rim, and work its way through that gap to the cratered highlands beyond.

If the engineering check outs all go as planned, the rover will then begin preparations for the test flight of Ingenuity, the little helicopter on board. The rover will need to find a large flat area to deploy the helicopter, then move off to give it flying room. This is expected to happen in the next two months.

The rover landing site for Tianwen-1's rover

Tianwen-1’s unnamed Mars rover

Earlier this week China released the first orbital images taken by its Tianwen-1 orbiter. Both images, indicated by the red boxes in the mosaic of two Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) context camera photos to the right, were of the as-yet unnamed rover’s landing site. The white box marks the area covered by the first high resolution image taken by MRO of this region.

China also announced that the landing of the rover will be delayed to May or June, not late April as first planned. No reasons were given for this delay.

Yutu-2

Both Yutu-2 and Chang’e-4 are presently in hibernation mode after completing their 27th lunar day on the far side of the Moon. No other significant updates have been released by the Chinese government.

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 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

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