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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.

 

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An ancient ocean on Ceres?

Two studies released today by the Dawn science team suggest that the spacecraft has found evidence that an ancient ocean once existed on Ceres.

In one study, the Dawn team found Ceres’ crust is a mixture of ice, salts and hydrated materials that were subjected to past and possibly recent geologic activity, and this crust represents most of that ancient ocean. The second study builds off the first and suggests there is a softer, easily deformable layer beneath Ceres’ rigid surface crust, which could be the signature of residual liquid left over from the ocean, too.

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

4 comments

  • Peter Arzenshek

    Interesting that the Occator crater is located in the deepest blue area of the gravitational map, indicating a high proportion of water under the surface, leading to less dense mass, and therefore lower gravitational field?

  • LocalFluff

    Ceres is now believed to be an ancient ocean bottom. Like an icy Jovian moon whose ice shell and underlying liquid ocean has evaporated, from bombardment and because Ceres is straddling the water ice line.

    I wonder if they have enough hydrazine left to soft land Dawn on Ceres. The gravity might be too high at 2.7% that of Earth’s.

  • Tom Billings

    One of the most interesting parts of the report is the mention of water clathrates.

    What many will think of first is:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate

    That water clathrates can be stronger than water ice by 100-1000 to 1 is something I did not know. More immediately one should ask what is the gas bound in the clathrate. While methane comes to mind it is *far* from the only possibility.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_compound

    However, whatever trapped gas is available in a water caged clathrate may be several very good things for us. Fuel to combine with water’s Oxygen: Raw materials for industrial processes: Atmosphere for Ceres! Yes, an atmosphere, from the crust of Ceres could be maintained for a very long time by continual drilling and release of gas. Initially this will just be for habitats, but these will grow. Eventually this can encompass the entire dwarf planet. Yes, even with only 2.7% of Earth’s gravitational pull.

    The gas is unlikely to be Oxygen because that is so reactive, but it might well be CO2. If it is ammonia, then that can be broken down into hydrogen for fuel and free Nitrogen for export and for thickening the atmosphere of an Oxygen/Nitrogen mixture atmosphere. A nice mix of 40% Oxygen and 60% Nitrogen could give us atmosphere not approached since the Carboniferous Era, when all that Oxygen was being released into Earth’s atmosphere. Then Ceres could become famous as the only place where humans regularly fly under their own power with 2.7% of Earth’s gravity!

    Is Heaven out there between Mars and Jupiter??

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