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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.

 

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.


The layered history of Mars as revealed in Valles Marineris

Layered cliff in Valles Marineris
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced, shows just one tiny cliff face in the gigantic canyon on Mars dubbed Valles Marineris. The photo was taken on June 13, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Like many other similar cliff faces that MRO has photographed and that I have previously highlighted, there are many many layers visible here. In fact, it appears that almost every cliff in this part of Valles Marineris is many layered, suggesting that like the Grand Canyon on Earth, the canyon as it was carved exposed in great detail the long geological history of Mars.

In this part of Mars, each layer probably represents the placementof a new layer of volcanic material, pouring out from the giant volcanoes in the Tharsis Bulge to the west. In addition, overlain on this volcanic record are probably deposits lain down by the atmosphere as Mars underwent its many climate cycles due to the regular shifts in its orbit and rotational tilt.

Overview map

We are just too far away at this time to really dig in and truly decipher that layered history.

The overview map to the right marks this image’s location by the white rectangle near the bottom. The black rectangle near the center marks a previous cool image that also showed numerous layers.

Valles Marineris at this location is at its widest, two hundred miles across with this section given the name Melas Chasma. The colors on the overview map indicate the vast range of depth here, with the distance from the red rim to the dark blue floor about 29,000 feet. Place Mount Everest here and its peak would still sit below the rim.

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

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