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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.
 

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A butte on Mars

A butte on Mars
Click for full photograph.

Cool image time! Because the Martian geology inside the enclosed stone valley beyond Maria Gordon notch is so complex and exposed, the Curiosity science team is spending a lot of time there. As noted in their January 7th update:

[W]e are marvelling at the landscape in front of us, which is very diverse, both in the rover workspace and in the walls around us. It’s a feast for our stratigraphers (those who research the succession in which rocks were deposited and deduce the geologic history of the area from this). We are all looking forward to the story they will piece together when they’ve had a bit of time to think!

The image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken by the rover’s high resolution camera on December 18th, soon after it entered this stone valley and was part of scan covering both this butte as well as a nearby cliff. I had previously featured a close-up of the top of this butte and its incredible overhang on December 20, 2021. This image however shows the whole butte, which I estimate to be about 30 to 40 feet high is about 10 feet high.

Not only does the butte illustrate well the alien nature of this stark and barren Martian terrain, so does all the terrain surrounding it. The surface everywhere is nothing but pavement stones of all sizes. Once again, there is no life, something you practically never see on Earth.

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

6 comments

  • Lee Stevenson

    It’s obvious an ancient sphinx!! ( Call that ‘face on Mars” guy and ask him!
    But seriously, you are wonderfully correct Bob, Mars is alien, and thus, so is it’s geology. Usual earth rules do not apply.
    How as a (very) amateur geologist I would love to go and have a run of my fingers and hammer thru those bedding layers, are there inclusions? Difference in grain sizes? Are they annual, every 11 years, or random? Volcanic, atmospheric or influenced by water? This stuff inspires me!
    And Bob, I understand how you must be yearning to get your ropes, crampons and helmet lamps out and get your ass down one of those deep pits that you highlight from time to time…. What do caves look like at 1/3rd gravity? And what could live down there?
    Excuse me babbling… Currently double vaccinated, and enjoying a bought of the latest wutang flu. A bit feverish, and good cold-like symptoms. I doubt if I will die tho… I also doubt I will bother with the booster.

  • sippin_bourbon

    She’s a real butte!

  • Andi

    “ No, it’s a mount! “
    – – – Firesign Theatre

  • Curious how the formation starts to lean in the first place. Or formed like that? Perhaps a softer core (ice?) surrounded by rock/dust, that slumps after formation? How formed in the first place? A lot going on here. We will not know until someone inspects it.

  • Andrew R

    If it were on Earth, I’d say it looks like it’s barely holding together. But at 0.38 g who knows how long it will last.
    It makes me wonder what kind of wonders we’ll find when cameras on rovers, helicopters or carried by humans finally get down in Valles Marineris.

  • pawn

    If you look at the full picture you can see it’s looks like it’s been disassembling for a while. Just visualize those rocks falling and rolling in slow motion with no air to hold dust.

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