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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. 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.

 

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An exoplanet that shouldn’t exist

Worlds without end: Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet that is too big for its tiny host star.

Present theory says that a Jupiter-sized planet should not have formed around this M-class dwarf star. But it has. In addition, the planet has the mass of Saturn but has been puffed up to the size of Jupiter. Yet, the star doesn’t provide it enough heat to cause it to puff up in this manner.

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

One comment

  • Max

    This is interesting on two points.
    One, The mass of a Saturn size planet is only 10% more than earth. This makes it one of the smaller planets found.
    Second, heat is not determined by radiation from the sun. For example, the moon receives twice as much heat as the earth because it has no atmosphere. And yet the Earth’s average temperature is 100° hotter than the moon.
    Here are some more examples of planets that do not get their heat from the sun.
    Jupiter, on its surface, is 50,000°. Five times hotter than the photosphere of the sun. Even though it is five times further from the sun than we are.
    Saturn is also hotter than the photosphere (surface) of the sun.
    The farthest planet from the sun, Neptune, is hotter than Uranus which is about the same temperature as the photosphere of the sun !
    The planets colder than the sun are Venus, at 860° average. Then mercury, at 200° average. Earth, at near 50° average. Mars, the fourth planet from the sun is also the coldest.

    As you can see here, or read for yourself, The heat of the planet has nothing to do with its distance from the sun. That is an unproven hypothesis a kin to religious dogma that people have been taught and always believed. Sounds logical, but in practice is far from the truth. The truth is what you can prove, and the proof is overwhelming…

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