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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
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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.


The sun continues its ramp down

On Monday NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in June. As I do every month, I am posting it here, below the fold, with annotations to give it context.

The decline in sunspots continued for the fourth month in a row, increasing the likelihood that the peak of solar maximum has finally come and gone and that we now seeing the beginning of the ramp down to solar minimum. This resulting solar maximum comes close to matching the science community’s final prediction (indicated by the red line), though that prediction was not detailed enough to include the distinct and unusual double peak for this maximum.

June Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

The sunspots we are seeing now are mostly in the southern hemisphere and close to the equator, further indications that the Sun’s magnetic field in the southern hemisphere has mostly completed its flip in polarity, another sign that the solar maximum is ending. As noted previously, this flip has already occurred in the northern hemisphere.

The big questions now are what will happen next: Will the next solar minimum be as prolonged as the last? Will there be a solar maximum that follows? Or will the Sun enter a Grand Minimum, with no sunspots for decades?

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

5 comments

  • Cotour

    So that would mean there is less of a solar magnetic field and that would cause more cosmic rays to fall upon the earth which would cause more cloud cover in the atmosphere and in turn cause the climate to cool.

    Where does that leave CO2?

    Is CO2 following temperature or leading temperature? It will be interesting to see in real time the effects of cosmic rays on the climate.

    Q: When will the solar cycle begin to pick up which will cause an increased solar magnetic field and begin to block the cosmic rays which will cause fewer clouds in the atmosphere which will cause the climate to warm?

  • You wrote:

    So that would mean there is less of a solar magnetic field and that would cause more cosmic rays to fall upon the earth which would cause more cloud cover in the atmosphere and in turn cause the climate to cool. [emphasis mine]

    Be aware that this idea is not yet proven. It is only a theory, which some evidence from CERN seems to support. However, even the scientists who gathered that evidence admit that the result is very preliminary (an admission that demonstrates they are good scientists).

    As for CO2, the geological record is very clear: CO2 increases have always followed climate temperature increases, which of course strongly suggests that it wasn’t the CO2 that was causing the temperature changes.

  • Cotour

    A 2009 paper on Cosmic Rays (great graphics) and cloud formation and a 20014 article that says that it has been dis-proven that Cosmic Rays have little if any effects.

    http://indico.cern.ch/event/52576/material/slides/0

    http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2014/06/29/cosmic-rays-dont-affect-cloud-making-data-show.html

    Humm.

  • The jury is still out on this theory, despite what was written in your second link.

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