Goverment Says the World Will Not End in 2012

The U.S. government wrote a helpful blog post on Monday titled, "Scary Rumors About the World Ending in 2012 Are Just Rumors."

The post on USA.gov says NASA scientists have received thousands of letters from people convinced that the world will end on Dec. 21, based on a misunderstanding of the ancient Mayan calendar that's been promulgated in doomsday message boards online. Some people think a giant comet will strike Earth that day, others that we are about to collide with another planet. A NASA scientist said he's received several letters from young people contemplating suicide because they believe the apocalypse is coming.

"The world will not end on December 21, 2012, or any day in 2012," the post says.

NASA released a video earlier this year explaining that the Mayan calendar does not actually predict the end of the world on Dec. 21, and that the myth that the planet "Nibiru" is heading toward Earth is easily disproved because astronomers have detected no such planet. America is not alone in trying to placate nervous doomsayers. The Russian government has made similar assurances to its people that the end of the world is not nigh, and authorities in France are planning to block access to a southern mountain which believers think could serve as a mystical place of refuge on Dec. 21.

Some doomsday groups are capitalizing on the fear by spreading the Dec. 21 myth online. A Belgian amateur astronomer named Patrick Geryl has set up an online community for people who follow him and believe the world will end in three weeks. He tells followers to stockpile 15 to 20 pairs of shoes and to be in good physical shape. Geryl declined an interview request, saying over email, "No time for interviews. ... Want to enjoy last weeks of our civilization."

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Yes, it’s unsophisticated to blame any given storm on climate change. Men and women in white lab coats tell us—and they’re right—that many factors contribute to each severe weather episode. Climate deniers exploit scientific complexity to avoid any discussion at all.

It’s true that Hurricane Sandy got an unusual boost from extremely warm waters off the East Coast—through the first half of 2012, sea temperatures from Maine to North Carolina were the highest on record. (Some of that warm water may be due to natural variability, however, rather than man-made climate change.) Warmer ocean waters provide more power for tropical cyclones, which is why hurricanes are more common in the tropics and why the Atlantic hurricane season runs roughly over the summer and early fall. A paper published earlier this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences made the case that warm years over the past several decades have been more active for cyclones than cooler years. Warmer air—and we’re on track to have the hottest year on record globally—can hold more moisture, which means storms can drop more rainfall. That’s one clear reason why many—but not all—atmospheric scientists believe global warming is likely to help cause stronger storms.

Clarity, however, is not beyond reach. Hurricane Sandy demands it: At least 40 U.S. deaths. Economic losses expected to climb as high as $50 billion. Eight million homes without power. Hundreds of thousands of people evacuated. More than 15,000 flights grounded. Factories, stores, and hospitals shut. Lower Manhattan dark, silent, and underwater.

An unscientific survey of the social networking literature on Sandy reveals an illuminating tweet (you read that correctly) from Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. On Oct. 29, Foley thumbed thusly: “Would this kind of storm happen without climate change? Yes. Fueled by many factors. Is storm stronger because of climate change? Yes.” Eric Pooley, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund (and former deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek ), offers a baseball analogy: “We can’t say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.”
In an Oct. 30 blog post, Mark Fischetti of Scientific American took a spin through Ph.D.-land and found more and more credentialed experts willing to shrug off the climate caveats. The broadening consensus: “Climate change amps up other basic factors that contribute to big storms. For example, the oceans have warmed, providing more energy for storms. And the Earth’s atmosphere has warmed, so it retains more moisture, which is drawn into storms and is then dumped on us.” Even those of us who are science-phobic can get the gist of that.
Sandy featured a scary extra twist implicating climate change. An Atlantic hurricane moving up the East Coast crashed into cold air dipping south from Canada. The collision supercharged the storm’s energy level and extended its geographical reach. Pushing that cold air south was an atmospheric pattern, known as a blocking high, above the Arctic Ocean. Climate scientists Charles Greene and Bruce Monger of Cornell University, writing earlier this year in Oceanography , provided evidence that Arctic icemelts linked to global warming contribute to the very atmospheric pattern that sent the frigid burst down across Canada and the eastern U.S.
If all that doesn’t impress, forget the scientists ostensibly devoted to advancing knowledge and saving lives. Listen instead to corporate insurers committed to compiling statistics for profit.

On Oct. 17 the giant German reinsurance company Munich Re issued a prescient report titled Severe Weather in North America . Globally, the rate of extreme weather events is rising, and “nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America.” From 1980 through 2011, weather disasters caused losses totaling $1.06 trillion. Munich Re found “a nearly quintupled number of weather-related loss events in North America for the past three decades.” By contrast, there was “an increase factor of 4 in Asia, 2.5 in Africa, 2 in Europe, and 1.5 in South America.” Human-caused climate change “is believed to contribute to this trend,” the report said, “though it influences various perils in different ways.”
Global warming “particularly affects formation of heat waves, droughts, intense precipitation events, and in the long run most probably also tropical cyclone intensity,” Munich Re said. This July was the hottest month recorded in the U.S. since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The U.S. Drought Monitor reported that two-thirds of the continental U.S. suffered drought conditions this summer.
Granted, Munich Re wants to sell more reinsurance (backup policies purchased by other insurance companies), so maybe it has a selfish reason to stir anxiety. But it has no obvious motive for fingering global warming vs. other causes. “If the first effects of climate change are already perceptible,” said Peter Hoppe, the company’s chief of geo-risks research, “all alerts and measures against it have become even more pressing.”

Which raises the question of what alerts and measures to undertake. In his book The Conundrum , David Owen, a staff writer at the New Yorker , contends that as long as the West places high and unquestioning value on economic growth and consumer gratification—with China and the rest of the developing world right behind—we will continue to burn the fossil fuels whose emissions trap heat in the atmosphere. Fast trains, hybrid cars, compact fluorescent light bulbs, carbon offsets—they’re just not enough, Owen writes.
Yet even he would surely agree that the only responsible first step is to put climate change back on the table for discussion. The issue was MIA during the presidential debates and, regardless of who wins on Nov. 6, is unlikely to appear on the near-term congressional calendar. After Sandy, that seems insane.
Mitt Romney has gone from being a supporter years ago of clean energy and emission caps to, more recently, a climate agnostic. On Aug. 30, he belittled his opponent’s vow to arrest climate change, made during the 2008 presidential campaign. “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet,” Romney told the Republican National Convention in storm-tossed Tampa. “My promise is to help you and your family.” Two months later, in the wake of Sandy, submerged families in New Jersey and New York urgently needed some help dealing with that rising-ocean stuff.

Obama and his strategists clearly decided that in a tight race during fragile economic times, he should compete with Romney by promising to mine more coal and drill more oil. On the campaign trail, when Obama refers to the environment, he does so only in the context of spurring “green jobs.” During his time in office, Obama has made modest progress on climate issues. His administration’s fuel-efficiency standards will reduce by half the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and trucks by 2025. His regulations and proposed rules to curb mercury, carbon, and other emissions from coal-fired power plants are forcing utilities to retire some of the dirtiest old facilities. And the country has doubled the generation of energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind.

Still, renewable energy accounts for less than 15 percent of the country’s electricity. The U.S. cannot shake its fossil fuel addiction by going cold turkey. Offices and factories can’t function in the dark. Shippers and drivers and air travelers will not abandon petroleum overnight. While scientists and entrepreneurs search for breakthrough technologies, the next president should push an energy plan that exploits plentiful domestic natural gas supplies. Burned for power, gas emits about half as much carbon as coal. That’s a trade-off already under way, and it’s worth expanding. Environmentalists taking a hard no-gas line are making a mistake.

Conservatives champion market forces—as do smart liberals—and financial incentives should be part of the climate agenda. In 2009 the House of Representatives passed cap-and-trade legislation that would have rewarded more nimble industrial players that figure out how to use cleaner energy. The bill died in the Senate in 2010, a victim of Tea Party-inspired Republican obstructionism and Obama’s decision to spend his political capital to push health-care reform.

Despite Republican fanaticism about all forms of government intervention in the economy, the idea of pricing carbon must remain a part of the national debate. One politically plausible way to tax carbon emissions is to transfer the revenue to individuals. Alaska, which pays dividends to its citizens from royalties imposed on oil companies, could provide inspiration (just as Romneycare in Massachusetts pointed the way to Obamacare).
Ultimately, the global warming crisis will require global solutions. Washington can become a credible advocate for moving the Chinese and Indian economies away from coal and toward alternatives only if the U.S. takes concerted political action. At the last United Nations conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, the world’s governments agreed to seek a new legal agreement that binds signatories to reduce their carbon emissions. Negotiators agreed to come up with a new treaty by 2015, to be put in place by 2020. To work, the treaty will need to include a way to penalize countries that don’t meet emission-reduction targets—something the U.S. has until now refused to support.

If Hurricane Sandy does nothing else, it should suggest that we need to commit more to disaster preparation and response. As with climate change, Romney has displayed an alarmingly cavalier attitude on weather emergencies. During one Republican primary debate last year, he was asked point-blank whether the functions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency ought to be turned back to the states. “Absolutely,” he replied. Let the states fend for themselves or, better yet, put the private sector in charge. Pay-as-you-go rooftop rescue service may appeal to plutocrats; when the flood waters are rising, ordinary folks welcome the National Guard.

It’s possible Romney’s kill-FEMA remark was merely a pander to the Right, rather than a serious policy proposal. Still, the reconfirmed need for strong federal disaster capability—FEMA and Obama got glowing reviews from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Romney supporter—makes the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign-trail statement all the more reprehensible.
The U.S. has allowed transportation and other infrastructure to grow obsolete and deteriorate, which poses a threat not just to public safety but also to the nation’s economic health. With once-in-a-century floods now occurring every few years, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the country’s biggest city will need to consider building surge protectors and somehow waterproofing its enormous subway system. “It’s not prudent to sit here and say it’s not going to happen again,” Cuomo said. “I believe it is going to happen again.”

Some scientists and science writers, however, were just as quick to caution that we can’t really attribute any single weather event to climate change—and that tropical cyclones like Sandy have proved particularly hard to connect to global warming. Andrew Revkin of Dot Earth drew a clear line against attributing Sandy directly to recent man-made warming, noting that there had been periods in the past when strong hurricanes occurred during cooler years

David Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor-at-large of Foreign Policy , noted in an Oct. 29 blog post that Sandy also brought his hometown, Washington, to a standstill, impeding affairs of state. To lessen future impact, he suggested burying urban and suburban power lines, an expensive but sensible improvement.
Where to get the money? Rothkopf proposed shifting funds from post-Sept. 11 bureaucratic leviathans such as the Department of Homeland Security, which he alleges is shot through with waste. In truth, what’s lacking in America’s approach to climate change is not the resources to act but the political will to do so. A Pew Research Center poll conducted in October found that two-thirds of Americans say there is “solid evidence” the earth is getting warmer. That’s down 10 points since 2006. Among Republicans, more than half say it’s either not a serious problem or not a problem at all.

Such numbers reflect the success of climate deniers in framing action on global warming as inimical to economic growth. This is both shortsighted and dangerous. The U.S. can’t afford regular Sandy-size disruptions in economic activity. To limit the costs of climate-related disasters, both politicians and the public need to accept how much they’re helping to cause them.

Asteroid 2012 TC4, Zooms by Earth 10/12/2012

A newfound asteroid the size of a house will fly closer to Earth than the moon on Friday (Oct. 12), but poses no danger of impacting our planet, NASA says.

The space rock, called asteroid 2012 TC4, is about 56 feet wide (17 meters) and will come within 59,000 miles (95,000 kilometers) of Earth at its closest point when it zips harmlessly by on Friday. That's about one-fourth the distance to the moon.

But you don't have to wait to see live views of the interloping space rock: There are two live webcasts of the asteroid today (Oct. 11). The Virtual Telescope Project and Slooh Space Camera, two groups that offer live telescope views of space via the Internet, will be providing the asteroid imagery.

The Virtual Telescope Project in Italy run by astrophysicist Gianluca Masi will provide a live telescope view of asteroid 2014 TC4 starting at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) via the project's WebTV. You can access the webcast here: http://www.astrowebtv.org.

Masi has already recorded several videos of asteroid 2012 TC4, and will provide live commentary during the webcast. He said the public is often attracted to asteroid flybys because of their connection with asteroid impacts on Earth. But there is scientific value behind them as well.

"Asteroids are very intriguing bodies, strongly connected with the origin of our solar system," Masi told SPACE.com in an email. "When an asteroid approaches our planet, we have good chances to study them better, especially small ones."

The Slooh Space Camera views of asteroid 2012 TC4 will be webcast later today at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT) and will be available here: http://www.slooh.com.

"One of our missions at Slooh is to provide the public with free, live coverage of amazing celestial events," said Slooh President Patrick Paolucci in a statement. "We will be tracking asteroid 2012 TC4 live from our observatory located on the Canary Islands - off the coast of West Africa."



Paolucci will provide commentary during the webcast and will be joined with Slooh's outreach coordinator Paul Cox and astronomer Bob Berman, a columnist for Astronomy Magazine. The webcast can be watched via computer or mobile device, Slooh officials said.

It may even be possible for seasoned amateur astronomers to see asteroid 2012 TC4 using a small telescope.

According to the website Spaceweather.com, which monitors night sky events, the asteroid "will be close enough to photograph through backyard telescopes as it brightens to approximately 14th magnitude." Magnitude is a scale used by astronomers to measure the brightness of objects in the night sky. The lower the magnitude number, the brighter the object.

NASA has reportedly been observing the asteroid 2012 TC4 with radar to better determine its orbit since its discovery on Oct. 4.

Asteroid 2012 TC4 is one of two asteroids to pass Earth inside the moon's orbit this week. On Sunday (Oct. 7), an even larger space rock — the 100-foot-wide (32-meter) asteroid 2012 TV —passed Earth at a range of 158,000 miles (255,000 km), or about 0.7 times the distance from Earth to the moon. The moon is on average about 238,000 miles (383,000 km) from Earth.



NASA and astronomers regularly monitor the skies for near-Earth asteroids because of the potential threat a large asteroid strike could pose to our planet. NASA's Asteroid Watch program is based at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

"We get passes between Earth-moon fairly frequently actually, although usually smaller space rocks," Asteroid Watch scientists wrote this week on Twitter while discussing asteroid 2012 TV.

DoomesDay 2012

Anyone who cruises the internet or all-night talk radio knows why. The ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala kept a calendar that is about to roll up the red carpet of time, swing the solar system into transcendental alignment with the heart of the Milky Way, and turn Earth into a bowling pin for a rogue planet heading down our alley for a strike.

The year 2012 is acting like a badly behaved celebrity. Frightful rumors and gossip are spreading. Already more than a half dozen books are marketing, to eager fans, astronomical fears about 2012 End Times. Opening in theaters on Friday, Nov. 13, will be 2012, a $200-million disaster movie that seems designed to break all records for disaster spectacles -- with cracking continents, plunging asteroids, burning cities, and a tsunami throwing an aircraft carrier through the White House. The movie's ominous slogan: "Find out the truth." Two other major movies about the 2012 doomsday are also reported to be in the works.

The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs according to which cataclysmic or transformation events will occur on 21 December 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Various astronomical alignments and numerological formula have been proposed as pertaining to this date, though none have been accepted by mainstream scholarship.

A New Age interpretation of this transition is that this date marks the start of time in which Earth and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, and that 2012 may mark the beginning of a new era.Others suggest that the 2012 date marks the end of the world or a similar catastrophe. Scenarios suggested for the end of the world include the arrival of the next solar maximum, or Earth's collision with an object such as a black hole, a passing asteroid, or a planet called "Nibiru".

World War III (WWIII) will start in 2012 Iran Vrs Israel & USA / China Vrs Japan

First,
The war with Iran is about to start.  Iran could launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel if it was sure the Jewish state were preparing to attack Iran.  Hajizadeh, who heads the Guard's aerospace division, said any attack on Iranian soil could trigger "World War III."
Senior Iranian military commanders repeated threats made over the past few weeks that Tehran will destroy Israel if it launches an attack on Iran either with or without the US.

“It is impossible to imagine an independent war between Iran and the US or the Zionist regime [Israel],” he said, adding that other countries in the region would likely side with Iran or Israel in case of war.
Iran would target US bases in the region should Israel attack, Hajizadeh added.

Referring to a deadly attack by Taliban gunmen against a US Marine base in southern Afghanistan earlier this month, in which five aircraft were destroyed, Hajizadeh warned that an attack by Israel on Iran could extend war to the region.

Second,
The war Between China and Japan could trigger World War III.
Japanese coast guard ships fired water cannon to push back Taiwanese vessels Tuesday in the latest confrontation over tiny islands in the East China Sea, as the main contenders, China and Japan, met in an effort to tamp down tensions.

About 40 Taiwanese fishing boats and 12 patrol boats entered waters near the islands on Tuesday morning, briefly triggering an exchange of water cannon fire with Japanese coast guard ships who said the Taiwanese vessels ignored warnings to get out of their territory.
The purchase has sparked sometimes violent protests in China and informal boycotts of Japanese products. Many Chinese have canceled vacations to Japan over the dispute. Japanese airline JAL says it plans to cut six flights a day from Japan to Beijing and Shanghai from Oct. 10-27 after the canceling of 15,500 seat reservations.
China has also dispatched government marine monitoring vessels to patrol around the Japan-administered islands.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Chikao Kawai, flanked by their aides, held a meeting on the dispute Tuesday at China's Foreign Ministry.
After the four-hour meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said both sides exchanged views “frankly and deeply,” and he reiterated that “China will never tolerate Japan's unilateral acts which violate China's territorial sovereignty.”
he Chinese Communist Party”s “Shi Lang” aircraft carrier is actually part of an “in-your-face” staged propaganda ploy to deter Western intelligence services from discovering the rest of China’s future fleet of aircraft carriers.

Through the use of elaborate sheet metal camouflage techniques, the additional 6 aircraft carriers under construction appear as dry-docked oil-tankers and container ships going through a restoration process.

Once construction and sea trials of the aircraft carriers are successfully completed, the CCP will launch a massive carrier task force– including a submarine fleet. The CCP will use this globe-trotting arsenal to lay claim to Taiwan, the Spratly Islands, and eventually the world.

2012 a Hoax...Haha. Fuld you...LOL

Reasons behind Dec 21 2012

Why have so many lies been told in order to create fear over this date. This is an open ended question that could be answered many many different ways. I think the reason that makes the most sense is to profit from it. Many people have websites on this subject which creates ad revenue, and sells their Ebooks. This date has been blown out of proportion for pure greed. Another reason is for recruiting religious groups. Any time there is the possibility of a world changing disaster people feel more inclined to convert to a religion for two reasons. The first being that maybe there devine being they worship may spare them from the catastrophe, and the second being that they will go to heaven or a similar place apposed to hell. In my opinion these are the reasons why some are spreading fear about this date.

Hurricane Katrina

Current Weather Theory

Some people attribute our changing climate to the fact that we are coming closer to Galactic Center.They say that we are experiencing more Natural Disasters because the magnetic field is disrupting the Earth. This is false because we are not going close to Galactic center, we are actually moving away from it (see my post on the Galactic Plane). Our climate is changing for several reasons:
1. Human Emissions and pollution, this is what is causing the majority of the climate change
2. The Earths orbit
3. Relationship between the Ocean and the Atmosphere
4. Volcanic Eruptions
5. Activity of the sun
The emissions you and I create enforce the greenhouse effect. Humans are causing the climate change not the Galactic plane, Nibiru, or anyone else. I know that we like to blame others for our mistakes, but it is us that is destroying our beautiful planet.

Nostradamus

Prophecies

Some of these Dooms Day theories are derived from Nostradamus and the Bible. To both of these I give no weight to them scientifically. For Nostradamus his predictions are so vague that they are open for interpretation. I am not very familiar with the bible but again, both of these sources bear no weight in a scientific discussion.

Planets on December 21st 2012

Planetary Alignment

      The above is where the planets will be on December 21st 2012. They are not even close to being aligned. One storey is that all the planets will align on December 21st 2012 and it will also be aligned with the Galactic Plane. I have already debunked that we will not be going through the Plane in the year of 2012. There will be no planetary alignment on December 21st 2012 period. It amazes me that some people are still lying to you, trying to spread fear and sell there E books that all have to do with "Surviving 2012".

Earth's Magnetic Field

This shows Earth's magnetic field during a magnetic shifting of the poles.

Pole Shifts and 2012

There are two different theories on the pole shift that will occur on December 21st 2012. The first I will talk about is a magnetic pole shift, which is a reversal between the North and South poles. The second pole shift I will be covering is a physical shift of the Earth's Crust.
Magnetic Pole shift: The above picture shows the Earth during a magnetic pole shift (which is currently happening).As you can see the Earth's magnetic field is not dormant during this pole shift, it just becomes more complicated. So as this pole shift occurs the Earth's South pole could travel up to Asia, or to Africa, until the poles have completely swapped spots. During this pole shift we are still protected against solar storms and space radiation. A Magnetic pole shift is a slow process, it takes hundreds even thousands of years. The biggest consequence of this pole shift will be changing our compasses in a few hundred years.
Physical Pole Shift:This occurs when the Earths crust shifts. We have had a few degree physical pole shift, but not a physical polar reversal. This would take a vast amount of energy that could not be linked to any increase in solar activity, or natural cycle. A physical polar reversal would be devastating to the Earth and its inhabitants, but you would not be able to pinpoint a day of this event or if it will even happen.

Galactic Plane

Galactic Plane Theory

What is the Galactic Plane? The Galactic plane is a gravitational field stretching out from the black hole in the center of the galaxy, that has a very high force of gravity. The black hole in our galaxy has an estimated mass of one trillion stars, which is what gives it such an enormously strong gravitational field. Because the black hole is so massive, it spins incredibly fast which causes the Galactic plane to be quite thin and it also causes our galaxy to have a spiral shape. In the picture above the Central Galactic Plane is the gravity field created by the black hole.
I am not denying the fact the this plain does exist, because it does. If we were passing through it in a few years it would lead to catastrophic disasters on our planet. Because the Earth moves in a sinusoidal curve back and forth over this Galactic plane we are heading towards it, but will not move through it for a long time.
So what would occur if we did move through this Galactic Plane? Large solar flares, like nothing we have seen before which could scorch the Earth. A pole shift, and many natural disasters. These natural disasters would be unlike current natural disasters they would be much larger and more intense.
Now I will try to show you why this will not occur any time soon. Right now we are not very close to Galactic center. And precession is such a slow process the position of Earth with respect to the galactic plane on Dec 21st 2009 will be very similar to the position of earth on Dec 21st 2012. It would make more sense in fifty to a hundred years time. Not the short period of time until December 21st 2012. However, from other sources this cycle occurs approximately ever 33 million years, and there is evidence we crossed it three million years ago which would indicate we would still be moving away from Galactic center and not towards it.
Summary
The galactic plane is a real thing, caused by the black hole in the middle of our galaxy. Passing through it could be catastrophic, but we will not be passing through it for another 30 million years. There is evidence showing the Earth passed through this plane three million years ago.

The Mayan's

First off a brief history of the Mayan's. They were a ancient civilization that were brilliant astronomers. There calenders were accurate enough to track every planet in its orbit and then show dates of astrological events such as a lunar eclipse. So where do the Mayans come into play in this hoax you might ask? Well they have a few calendars, one of them called the long count calendar. It has a period of 5,126 years, the end of this long count calender is set for December 21st 2012 (the long count calender on this day will be 13.0.0.0.0). The Mayan's never predicted the destruction of the Earth on this day, instead they said great change would happen on this day. They never said what the great change was, it could be the destruction of the Earth, however, others speculate it to be a shift from our old ways, a kind of a spiritual evolution (I on the other hand believe no such spiritual evolution will occur). Also the calendar might be just reset from 13.0.0.0.0 to 0.0.0.0.1. Some say that on this day the Earth will align itself with the galactic plane, this is false though, it will not align with galactic center. No where does it say the doomsday will occur on December 21st 2012. We tend to think beginning to end, which is completely different then how the Mayan's think, they thought in cycles, their calendar does not end it is just another cycle.
Do not live in fear because nothing will happen on this day, it will just be another day except the doomsayers will feel really foolish. However, it is always important to have a plan for natural disasters as these could occur at any time. It is important to have enough water and food to last you a month, as well as survival clothes. I urge you right now to make a survival kit for you and your family and always be prepared. Right now there is a lot more to worry about then 2012.

A Wong Translation

A Sumerian Stone Tablet

The Sumerian's part in the hoax

First off who were the Sumerians? They were an ancient civilization that existed from 2900-1800 BC, who lived in the area of mesopotamia. A large amount of evidence supporting 2012 is taken from the Sumerian's.
I will start by talking about the above picture. In the above picture it has been said that this shows every planet in our solar system, in the correct dimensions and distance away from the sun (Jupiter the largest, Earth the third planet etc etc.), but it also shows 12 planets. If you minus the sun and the moon (they thought these were both planets) that leaves us with 10 planets. This is where the myth of Nibiru comes from. Nibiru is a planet said to be four times the size of Earth and having a 3600 year orbit around the Sun, its orbit comes very close to Earth. The picture above was originally translated by Zecharia Sitchin. However, the symbol for sun in the Sumerian culture is not what is in the middle of this diagram, it closely resembles the symbol for the sun (below is a picture of the Sumerian symbol for the sun, now look back at the picture above and compare the symbols), but instead it is the symbol for a star. This is counter argument number one to Planet X (Nibiru).
The second argument being if it truley was only about four years away from close contact with the Earth we would be able to see it by now. In some reports it has four times the mass of earth. If it was coming at Earth it could not be more than a billion killometers away, therefore we would already be able to see it. For example Pluto would be both further away and smaller then the approaching Planet X. It is believed by some that on this Planet X is a race called the Anunnaki (meaning those from Heaven in Sumerian). They are an alien race that came to Earth on Planet X's last orbit into the inner solar system. There is talk of them being the creators of the human race, and giving the Sumerian's knowledge of the planets in the solar system. Which some use to explain the picture above because the Sumerians would be unable to see Pluto without a telescope, but I have already explained that the picture is not what is appears to be. And if these superior beings did give the Sumerians Knowledge of our solar system why would they tell them that both the moon and the sun are planets when they are not?
I believe the most concluding evidence is the lack of evidence of this Planet X. It is fantasy, nothing more.

Nibiru hoax Quotes

A picture of the Sumerian Symbol for the Sun

Good Brief Overview of 2012

Bad Astronomy

• Phil Plait\'s Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions: The Planet X Arguments in a Nutshell
  Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy. This is an indepth look at the coming of Planet Nibiru, and how it is in fact, not coming. It is a strong argument based on scientific fact. P.S. Nibiru was scheduled to arrive in 2003.

Planetary Alignment

• 2012 galactic alignment: hoax
  A Nasa Astrobiologist explains that the Planetary Alignment is an internet hoax and nothing more. He goes on to say that this alignment is impossible.

Grotesque, Our Sister Solar System

Astronomers have detected our "grotesque" twin: A planetary system arranged much like our own solar system, a new study says.

Dubbed GJ676A, the system has two rocky planets orbiting close to its host star, and two gas giants orbiting far away. This means the system is arranged like our system—though in GJ676A, everything is much larger.

For instance, the smallest rocky planet in GJ676A is at least four times the mass of Earth, while the largest gas giant is five times the size of Jupiter.

Other multiple-planet systems have been discovered, such as HD10180, which has been called the richest exoplanetary find ever because of the seven to nine planets orbiting its host star. (Also see "Our Solar System May Have Millions of 'Twins.'")

But HD10180's planets are all gas giants in relatively close orbits, while GJ676A has both rocky and gas planets—and its "Neptune-like" planet takes 4,000 days to make one orbit, said study leader Guillem Anglada Escudé, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Gottingen in Germany.

The long orbits of GJ676A's gas giants and the short orbits of its close-in, extremely hot super Earths are what led the astronomers to dub GJ676A our solar system's twin.

"Hidden" Planets Detected Via New Technique

Anglada Escudé and team used a new data-analysis technique to detect smaller planets around the star, which had already been known to host one gas giant.

"This means that it's likely that other systems have hidden companions," he said. "We just need to apply the new techniques to find them."

(See "Light From a 'Super Earth' Seen—A First.")

The finding also may refine planetary-formation models, he added. According to one popular explanation for super Earths so close to a host star, the planets form farther out and migrate inward.

"But your planet that moves picks up all the mass with it," Anglada Escudé said.

"That didn't happen here, because you still had mass to form the gas giants. It's possible that the gas giants formed first in long-period orbits—they didn't migrate—and then a few million years later, you start forming super-Earths with the leftovers."

'Aliens Exist'

Doomsday Solar Flares 12/21/2012

Solar flares happen all the time and have been happening since the beginning of time. But what is a solar flare? A solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the surface of the Sun, or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 10²⁵ joules of energy. Solar flares are not visible from Earth. They are mainly followed by an enormous CME, which is also known as a coronal mass ejection. Solar flares, and the corresponding CME’s produce about one sixth (1/6) of the total energy output of the Sun each second, equivalent to 160,000,000,000 megatons of TNT, which is roughly 25,000 times more energy than released from the impact of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with Jupiter. The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions and atoms through the corona of the sun into space. These clouds typically reach Earth a day or two after the event. This sends an extreme amount of radiation hurtling toward the earth.

Massive solar flares are sometimes associated with CMEs which can trigger geomagnetic storms that have been known to knock out electric power for extended periods of time. According to Matthew Stein, many hundred thousands of miles of high voltage lines would act like an antenna drawing the electro-magnetic pulse from a solar flare toward thousands of transformers on the world’s power grids. Many transformers could burn out and be difficult to replace.

In any event, the potential for our Planet to be stripped of its power grid is possible. Not to mention that all things electrical would instantly stop working. That means transportation would come to a grinding halt. Planes, trains, and automobiles would be affected, among other things. And that means planes will drop from the sky. This would also happen if a nuclear bomb were to be detonated in our atmosphere. And let’s not even think about what all that radiation does to the human body.

When normally occurring solar flares happen, our atmosphere protects us from the potential effects of the radiation. The earth’s ozone layer acts like a shield to block this harmful radiation from reaching us. These x-ray and UV rays go around us like water going around a small island in the middle of a river.

This atmosphere is created by gravity, which is created by the earth rotating on its axis. This axis is an imaginary “pole,” running between the North and South poles that our planet spins on. This spinning creates the magnetism of the earth, and in turn, gravity, which we need desperately, and cannot afford to lose.

This is why scientists are so concerned about Global warming, as the holes in the ozone layer are over the North and South poles. As these holes expand, more radiation from these flares gets inside the ozone layer, accelerating the melting of the ice caps.

Sun Region Releases Two Solar Flares June 2012

Two M-class solar flares along with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have been released by a region on the sun, titled AR 1504, a recent report has revealed.

It has been noted by NASA that the sun has discharged a blow of electrically charged particles towards the planet, which possibly points to the occurrence of a geomagnetic activity on Saturday. However, the agency says that the situation would not be concerning.

While the first flare peaked on June 13 at 9:17 AM EDT and lasted for three hours. The second one lasted for a long while, as per the report, and it peaked at 10:08 AM EDT on June 14.

Goddard’s Space Weather Center, which analyzed the flares, has told that the CME linked with the first flare was at a speed of 375 miles per second. Also, there would be a little effect on Earth because of its slow speed.

Though, on the other hand, the second CME, which was at a high speed of 800 miles per second, is likely to have an adverse effect on Mars and the Spitzer spacecraft.

Milky Way Galaxy's Head-On Crash with Andromeda

Galaxy and the Milky Way CollisionCredit: NASA, ESA, Z. Levay and R. van der Marel (STScI), and A. MellingerThis photo illustration depicts a view of the night sky just before the predicted merger between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. 

Galaxies set for collision course, Will Earth Survive?

Gas 'Bridge' Formed Millions Of Years Ago When Andromeda, Triangulum Galaxies Collided

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Two galaxies near our own Milky Way may have had a close encounter billions of years ago that created a vast bridge of gas that links them together to this day, a new study finds.

Observations from the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope, a massive radio instrument in Green Bank, W.Va., indicate that hydrogen gas may be streaming between the colossal Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, and its neighboring Triangulum Galaxy, or M33.

"The properties of this gas indicate that these two galaxies may have passed close together in the distant past," Jay Lockman, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), said in a statement. "Studying what may be a gaseous link between the two can give us a new key to understanding the evolution of both galaxies."

These results were hinted at in a 2004 discovery, made by astronomers using the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands, but these early observations of a gaseous link between M31 and M33 were largely contested on technical grounds, the researchers said.

The new results, however, seem to indicate that astronomers' hunch eight years ago may have been correct. The highly sensitive Green Bank Telescope has not only confirmed the existence of the gaseous bridge, but has also found six dense clumps of gas within it. [When Galaxies Collide: Photos of Galactic Crashes]

Lockman and his colleagues examined these clumps and found that they share roughly the same relative velocity with respect to Earth as they do to the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies. This indicates that they could be part of a bridge between the two neighboring structures, the researchers said.

The Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies are located approximately 2.6 and 3 million light-years from Earth, respectively. Both are members of the so-called Local Group of galaxies, which is made up of our own Milky Way and roughly 30 other galaxies.

When two galaxies pass close to one another, the encounter can cause gas from the galaxies being strewn across intergalactic space, creating a lengthy "tidal tail" between them.

"We think it's very likely that the hydrogen gas we see between M31 and M33 is the remnant of a tidal tail that originated during a close encounter, probably billions of years ago," Spencer Wolfe, of West Virginia University in Morgantown, said in a statement. "The encounter had to be long ago, because neither galaxy shows evidence of disruption today."

The researchers intend to use the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) for follow-up studies to learn more about the gas bridge, and to better understand properties of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies themselves.

"The gas we studied is very tenuous and its radio emission is extremely faint — so faint that it is beyond the reach of most radio telescopes," Lockman said. "We plan to use the advanced capabilities of the GBT to continue this work and learn more about both the gas and, hopefully, the orbital histories of the two galaxies."

The scientists presented their findings here at the 220th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held from June 10 to 14 at the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center.

By: SPACE.com Staff
Published: 06/12/2012 07:36 AM EDT on SPACE.com

Mars Rover Now Aiming for Sweet Spot

NASA mission managers are tweaking the landing target for the new Mars rover, which is on track to touch down shortly after 1:30 a.m. EDT on Aug. 6.

Mars Science Laboratory is headed to a large crater that  has a 3-mile-high mound of what appears to be layers of sediment  inside. Scientists aren't sure how the mound, recently named Mount Sharp, formed, but they believe it is what is left over from debris that once filled the 96-mile-wide pit, known as Gale Crater.

 When Discovery News Met Mars Rover 'Curiosity'

With confidence growing that the rover, nicknamed Curiosity, is on track for a precision landing, NASA decided to aim to for a smaller spot, which would lop off months of driving time if successful. The new zone also is closer to the Mount Sharp's central peak which has more high-priority science targets.

WATCH VIDEO: WHY IS MARS RED?

The point of the mission, expected to last two years, is to probe Mount Sharp and the surrounding area for chemical and geologic evidence that would support life and keep it preserved. 

The new landing target, pictured above in black, is 12 miles long and 4 miles wide. The previous zone was 12 miles long and 16 miles wide.

 Scary Landing Awaits Mars-Bound Rover

A successful landing depends on a newly designed rocket-powered sky crane, which is expected to gently lower the car-sized rover onto the surface of Mars. 

"We've done everything we can to ensure the greatest probability of success," NASA manager Dave Lavery told reporters during a conference call Monday. 

 "The reality is, this is a very risky business. Historically, only about 40 percent of the missions to Mars have been successful," he said.

Curiosity has been racing toward Mars since its launch on Nov. 26, 2011, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. 

Because of the distance between Mars and Earth, communication signals indicating whether the rover landed safely will take at least 14 minutes to arrive. 

Image: NASA's new Mars probe is expected to touch down inside a 96-mile-diameter crater located just south of the equator. The oval circle is the targeted landing zone. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS

'Supermoon' May Outshine Meteor Shower This Weekend

The biggest full moon of the year, a so-called "supermoon," will take center stage when it rises this weekend, and may interfere with the peak of an annual meteor shower created by the leftovers from Halley's comet.

The supermoon of 2012 is the biggest full moon of the yearand will occur on Saturday (May 5) at 11:35 p.m. EDT (0335 May 6), though the moon may still appear full to skywatchers on the day before and after the actual event. At the same time, the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower will be hitting its peak, NASA scientists say.

"Its light will wash out the fainter Eta Aquarid meteors," NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke of the Marshall Space Flight Center told SPACE.com in an email. Still, Cooke said there's a chance that the brightest fireballs from the meteor display may still be visible.

A supermoon occurs when the moon hits its full phase at the same time it makes closest approach to Earth for the month, a lunar milestone known as perigee. Scientists also refer to the event as a "perigee moon," according to a NASA video on the 2012 supermoon.

That's exactly what will happen on Saturday, when the moon will swing within 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers) of Earth — its closest approach of the entire year. Because the moon's orbit is not exactly circular, there is a 3-percent variation in its closest approaches to Earth each month. Theaverage Earth-moon distance is about 230,000 miles (384,400 km).

With May's full moon timed with the moon's perigee, it could appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than other full moons of 2012, astronomer Tony Phillips explained in a NASA video. There is absolutely no chance the supermoon will threaten Earth.

The last supermoon was in March 2011. At the time, it was the biggest and brightest full moon in 18 years. [Amazing Supermoon Photos from 2011]

While the moon's extra brightness during the supermoon may wash out some of the fainter Eta Aquarid meteors, all is not lost, Cooke said.

"Our fireball cameras have already detected four bright ones. So I would say that the odds are pretty good that folks can see a bit of Halley's Comet over the next few days, if they care to take the time to look," Cooke explained. "They will be the big and bright ones, fewer in number with a rate of just a few per hour, but they will be there."

Cooke anticipates that the 2012 Eta Aquarid meteor shower will peak at up to 60 meteors per hour on May 5.

The eta Aquarid display is one of two meteor showers created by dust from Halley's comet (the Orionid shower in October is the other). It occurs every April and May when the Earth passes through a stream of debris cast off by comet Halley during its 76-year trip around the sun.

The eta Aquarid meteor shower of 2012 actually began on April 19 and ends on May 28, but its peak is in the overnight period between Saturday and Sunday (May 5 and 6).

"Meteor watchers in the Southern Hemisphere stand the best chance of seeing any meteors," a NASA advisory from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained.

NASA - Q & A's, 2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?

Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know. It will, however, be another winter solstice. 

Much like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the science behind the end of the world quickly unravels when pinned down to the 2012 timeline. Below, NASA Scientists answer several questions that we're frequently asked regarding 2012.

Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer (A): Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012. 

Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?
A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

Q: Could phenomena occur where planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.

Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles. 

Q: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the earth’s crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours? 
A: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-switch to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway. 
› More about polar shift 

Earth, as seen in the Blue Marble: Next Generation collection of images, showing the color of the planet's surface in high resolution. This image shows South America from September 2004.Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.


Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.