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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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Astronomers: Potentially dangerous asteroid 2024 YR4 originally came from main asteroid belt

Using new data from ground-based telescopes, astronomers now believe that the potentially dangerous asteroid 2024 YR4 originally came from main asteroid belt and is a stony solid body, not a rubble pile.

The study reveals YR4 is a solid, stony type that likely originated from an asteroid family in the central Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter, a region not previously known to produce Earth-crossing asteroids. “YR4 spins once every 20 minutes, rotates in a retrograde direction, has a flattened, irregular shape, and is the density of solid rock,” said Bryce Bolin, research scientist with Eureka Scientific and lead author of the study.

You can read the paper here [pdf].

At present calculations suggest it has an almost zero chance of hitting the Earth in 2032, though during that close approach the chances of it hitting the Moon range from 2% to 4%, depending on which scientist you ask.

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

  • Jeff Wright

    Some have suggested burying inflatable based in rubble piles for shielding –but a nice solid rock has its charms as well.

  • Ray Van Dune

    For years I have wondered whether Earth / Lunar orbiting asteroids could be used for planetary defense. Small deflections could be made by onboard rockets that might allow them to be steered into the path of incoming threats.

  • wayne

    Popcorn in Bed
    Cassie; First Time Watching…
    “Starship Troopers” (1997)
    https://youtu.be/ls7aa_GRoOQ
    42:05

  • Ray Van Dune

    And yes, obviously capturing such a guardian asteroid would require enormous energy, at least a nuclear powered rocket firing for months or even years!

  • Don C.

    The paper referenced here only theorizes where in the asteroid belt that 2024YR4 originated. Although it does have all of the orbital elements listed in Table 1, plus three other constants that are calculated for orbit..

    This paper (arXiv:2504.04003v1 by Elango & Loeb) estimates parallax corrections for the orbit at the Dec 22, 2032 date. It also shows all six of the orbital elements.

    Both papers ended with an appeal for telescopes at all five Lagrange points:
    “…NEO-specific telescopes positioned at all Lagrange points thereby eliminating existing NEO blindspots.” I smell more cash for scopes.

    I could not locate a paper that actually calculates the estimated “hit” percentages. Most of the folks are using the JPL Horizons system (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/) for calculating the orbits of earth-moon-YR4, and may not have the time to write formal papers about their findings. But there is a tutorial for using the Horizons program yourself, with all of its 1,444,807 asteroids et al. Yeah, and here I thought there were only 1,443,500 of them!

  • john hare

    Ray Van Dune
    April 9, 2025 at 7:20 am
    “””For years I have wondered whether Earth / Lunar orbiting asteroids could be used for planetary defense. Small deflections could be made by onboard rockets that might allow them to be steered into the path of incoming threats.”””

    Obviously I agree.

    https://selenianboondocks.com/2013/03/dinokiller-eight-ball/

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