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The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

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Identifying the mysterious dark bands in Venus’s atmosphere

The uncertainty of science: Scientists have now proposed two new best candidates for the unknown major component in Venus’s upper atmosphere that was first identified in 1974 when Mariner 10 took the first good close-up images.

We have analyzed spectra taken during the second Venus flyby of MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft on its route to Mercury, in 2007. Using a numerical code, we have reproduced the light reflected by the equatorial atmosphere of the planet and retrieved the distribution of particles in the upper atmosphere of Venus, with a cloud top of some 75 km above the surface. We have also retrieved the absorption spectrum of the puzzling absorber and compared it with some previously proposed candidates. While no perfect match is found, sulfur-bearing species (S2O and S2O2) provide the best agreement. There is still a long way to undoubtedly identify Venus’s UV absorber, but this work provides substantial spectral constraints.

The dark absorber shows up as dark streaks in the upper atmosphere, and allows images to track wind and cloud movement. No one has been able to firmly identify it.

S2O and S2O2 are disulfur monoxide and disulfur dioxide respectively, both of which are unstable on Earth. The first is thought to have been detected in Io’s numerous volcanic eruptions, with it settling as a solid around at least one volcano, Pele. The second has already been suggested as the dark absorber. This research helps confirm that earlier research.

Note however that other research says there is too little sulfur in Venus’s atmosphere for this to be its dark absorber. The science here therefore remains decidedly unsettled.

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

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