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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.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
 

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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
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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.


Young lava on the Moon?

Young lava on the Moon?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on November 27, 2023 by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and was today featured by the science team. From their caption:

One of the early findings from the LRO mission was the discovery of volcanic features known as Irregular Mare Patches (IMPs) scattered across the nearside. These landforms are generally considered volcanic. However, their ages are hotly debated. They may be as young as 50 million years or as old as 3.5 billion years. The Aristarchus IMP (25.045°N, 313.233°E) is one of the smallest and most enigmatic IMP. The fact that this IMP is found within the Aristarchus crater ejecta suggests it formed after the crater, which is dated at 200 million years.

Alternatively, this IMP may have formed as part of ejecta emplacement from the Aristarchus crater forming impact. However, no other crater ejecta on the Moon exhibits a similar landform.

Astronomers for decades before and since Sputnick have reported what appears to be some activity in the Aristachus region, though none of those reports have ever been confirmed. In LRO’s long mission orbiting the Moon it has not yet detected any obvious changes there, suggesting that there is little or no present activity. These patches however appear to indicate activity in the relatively recent past.

The patches however also indicate activity that seems alien. Why would the lava form in this manner, as rough patch of knobs, sometimes aligned, sometimes not?

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

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

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Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

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