SMITHSONIAN Connections ~ When covers were in unison: January 1980

[Scott T. Shier]

 

35 January's ago ...

 

I was perusing some Smithsonian magazines in my collection this month, and came upon this letter to the editor, on page 18 of the March 1980 issue --->

 

Dear Sir:  To my surprise, the January Smithsonian and the January National Geographic carried  identical pictures on their covers. In my 60 years I do not recall seeing the same cover pictures on two national magazines in the same month.

     How did it happen?

Frank Burson

Brandon, Florida

 

[Editor reply]: 

It was pure coincidence. This image of a live volcano erupting on Jupiter's moon Io was so striking and scientifically illuminating that it seemed a natural choice. In addition to Smithsonian and National Geographic, it also appeared on the cover of Scientific American, the Arizona Alumnus, and even a Chinese nature journal, Ziran Zazhi.    - Ed.

 

 

First, let’s note that this is regarding the January 1980 issue for all three renowned magazines. I think this is very interesting. For a long time I had absent-mindedly noticed that this NGM and Smithsonian cover images were ‘similar’, but without ever personally holding them side by side in all these years, I guess I always thought they were at least slightly different versions of the same scene. Well now I know. That the venerable Scientific American also ran the same image, for the exact same month … is quite a coincidence.

Now, there’s been other times I’ve noticed that a story is gaining traction in the national media or news landscape and that there’s been a handful of other instances where NGM and Smithsonian have run cover stories on the same “story”, but usually from somewhat different (editorial) vantage points, as well as differing photo or illustration for their cover. Further, there’s a trend that they are 1-3 months out of sync, so that NGM might have a July cover story on “X”, and then Smithsonian does same story in Aug. or Sept. ; or vice-versa. Stemming from my Smithsonian magazine collection and interest, I have thought about doing an in-depth collating and comparison to see how many times this has happened.

 

I just wanted to show the 3 covers (attached below) and mention this to the 'Corner.

 

FYI ~

The caption text for this image from Smithsonian read:

Molten lava on Jupiter’s “moon”, Io, erupts into a 130-mile high plume; this is one of new studies (p. 36) of solar system’s satellites  {…by Voyager I]. JPL/NASA

NGM’s corresponding caption for their cover read:

The solar system’s only known active volcanoes beyond earth fling material high above the sulfurous crust of Jupiter’s moon, Io. High-contrast image by Voyager I, NASA/JPL.

           ~ Scott 

[Scott T. Shier]

This cover image and the story of Voyager I's remarkable journey gets a prominent referral in the Society's still-new book, The Covers: Iconic Photographs... (2014), on the page spread 162/163, where the January 1980 NGM cover makes an encore appearance, along with a smaller corner image of the actual opening spread (pgs. 2/3) to the article itself. 

This NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory image also was enlarged and unobstructed in said article, pgs. 4/5.

Minor other reference:

...page 374 of the Society's centennial book 100 Years of Adventure & Discovery mentions the 1980 Voyager I--Jupiter explorations, briefly.

[George Thomas Wilson]

Scott,

This photo takes me back.  I, for one, am not surprised that it was used by multiple publications.  It was, after all, the first image expressly made to examine the volcanoes on Io.  Notice how it is heavily overexposed to bring out the details of the otherwise very faint plume.  Because it was a navigation photo, the black and white discovery image was also overexposed to bring out faint stars.  Sometimes luck can play its role in science.

Tom