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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

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Hubble snaps new hi-res photo of Jupiter

Jupiter, as seen by Hubble in 2020
Click for full image.

Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to take a new global image of Jupiter, aimed to provide an global census of the gas giant’s storm systems.

This latest image of Jupiter, taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on August 25, 2020, was captured when the planet was 406 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s sharp view is giving researchers an updated weather report on the monster planet’s turbulent atmosphere, including a remarkable new storm brewing, and a cousin of the famous Great Red Spot region gearing up to change color – again.

The moon seen to the left is Europa. Hubble takes annual images of the planets outward from Earth in order to provide scientists this global view.

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

5 comments

  • Max

    I keep wondering if the great red spot, Jupiters other South Pole, is responsible for Io’s volcanoes. The strong magnetic flux inducing heat as the moon passes.
    There’s good reason to believe that Europa might be liquid under the ice for the same reason. Future home of the Jovian moon mining consortium refueling station…

  • sippin_bourbon

    Continental Amalgamated, mining on Io.
    (Outland, 1981).

    —————————————-

    Beautiful picture.

  • James Street

    Last month during the Republican National Convention (RNC) the humor/parody site The Babylon Bee came up with this article:

    RNC Surprise: Trump Announces Space Force Has Defeated Jupiter
    “I know what the main thing is worrying all Americans right now,” Trump told a crowd of supporters who were neither wearing masks nor socially distancing, since that’s for sissies. “You’re worried that lurking out there is our greatest enemy, the planet Jupiter. You no longer need to worry, because it has been defeated!”
    https://babylonbee.com/news/rnc-surprise-trump-announces-space-force-has-defeated-jupiter

  • wayne

    Outland (1981)
    –the first 9 minutes-
    https://youtu.be/-J8mOOtS7XI
    9:00

  • born01930

    With clarity like that from Hubble, how large would the mirror need to be to make Europa as clear? I read once somewhere we could possibly make and place telescopes large enough on the moon to see continents on eco-planets. Maybe I mis-remember

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