A look ahead to Sunday’s comet fly-by of Mars
On Sunday Comet Siding Spring will whiz past Mars at a distance of only 82,000 miles.
The article gives a good overview of where look to see the comet if you own a telescope, as well as what the many spacecraft at Mars are going to do to both view the fly-by as well as protect themselves from it.
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On Sunday Comet Siding Spring will whiz past Mars at a distance of only 82,000 miles.
The article gives a good overview of where look to see the comet if you own a telescope, as well as what the many spacecraft at Mars are going to do to both view the fly-by as well as protect themselves from it.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows 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.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed 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.
In the trilogy, “Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars” one of the methods used to bring water to Mars was to steer comets into an intercept, then blow them up into small pieces upon reentry. There were some other very interesting ideas in the series as well.
Life imitating fiction. I also read the series and enjoyed it very much. Real data mixed with good science and a touch of fantasy to make it almost plausible. (The terraforming of Mars with space elevators I mean.)
In real life, Mars is not dense enough to hold a thick atmosphere. So I am hoping the author will tell the terraforming story for “White Venus” and ” Jeweled Saturn”.
Venus is earths evil twin but has nearly the same gravity. With 90 earth atmospheres, it would probably terraform into a water planet. I’m thinking airogell constructed carbon fiber cities suspended from hydrogen balloons floating in the green zone miles above the hot surface. Since Venus’s day is longer then it’s Year, a space elevator probably wouldn’t work.
Saturn on the other hand would be a fun challenge. With gravity only 10% more than Earths, humans could live there without much discomfort.