To read this post please scroll down.

 

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.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it 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.


Hubble spots an asteroid spout six comet-like tails.

Hubble spots an asteroid spout six comet-like tails.

Astronomers viewing our solar system’s asteroid belt with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have seen for the first time an asteroid with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel. Unlike all other known asteroids, which appear simply as tiny points of light, this asteroid, designated P/2013 P5, resembles a rotating lawn sprinkler. Astronomers are puzzled over the asteroid’s unusual appearance.

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

5 comments

  • Orion314

    Puzzled is quite the understatement,,, if anything I’ve ever seen looks like a text book sci-fi example of alien contact, this is it!!!
    How can a tumbling asteroid/comet type body emit laser like beams? Also, the rotating lawn sprinkler example just doesn’t work, since those generate spiral arms, whereas these are straight out beams…Think of the old ball and mace, i.e. a spiked ball. This is really a must see…BTW, how is it the last couple of HST photos released of Comet Ison and this crazy asteroid have NO stars in the background whatsoever? How is this even possible? Of all the thousands of pics of comets and asteroids I’ve ever seen, I can never recall seeing any with no stars (or blurred star trails)in the background..Did Nasa/JPL photoshop these out? Very odd….
    Clearskies!

  • The lack of stars in the background is merely a question of exposure and timing. I’ll give you three likely possibilities. 1. The asteroid and its tails is likely bright, requiring a relatively short exposure. Thus, the stars are likely too dim to stand out. 2. They probably enhanced the image digitally to bring out the asteroid and tails, which could very easily have made the stars less visible. 3. The asteroid is moving against a field of stars, and thus to keep the asteroid sharp the stars would move and become blurred, making them less visible as well.

    All in all, not odd at all.

  • Don

    Paging Richard C Hoagland. LOL

  • Orion314

    LOL, ;) , I thought of the RCH connection AFTER I posted, hoped no one else would have thought of it…neverless , the HST photo I viewed on space.com of the asteroid? ,was unlike anything I’ve seen b4, perhaps because it was such a tight/close in photo, the tails go striaght out ,
    clearskies!
    mb

  • Don

    Perhaps Geoorge Noury will turn the show over to Hoagland yet again, for more insanity from the man.

    I believe Art Bell washed his hands of Hoagland years ago. But who knows, he needs guests for his return to the airwaves show.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *