2012 - What Will Happen?

No Reversal will happen

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:18:00 +0000

Written by Ian O'Neill

Apparently, on December 21st 2012, our planet will experience a powerful event. This time we're not talking about Planet X, Nibiru or a "killer" solar flare, this event will originate deep within the core of our planet, forcing a catastrophic change in our protective magnetic field. Not only will we notice a rapid reduction in magnetic field strength, we'll also see the magnetic poles rapidly reverse polarity (i.e. the north magnetic pole will be located over the South Pole and vice versa). So what does this mean to us? If we are to believe the doomsayers, we'll be exposed to the vast quantities of radiation blasting from the Sun; with a reversing magnetic field comes a weakening in the Earth's ability to deflect cosmic rays. Our armada of communication and military satellites will drop from orbit, adding to the chaos on the ground. There will be social unrest, warfare, famine and economic collapse. Without GPS, our airliners will also plough into the ground…

Using the Mayan Prophecy as an excuse to create new and explosive ways in which our planet may be destroyed, 2012 doomsayers use the geomagnetic shift theory as if it is set in stone. Simply because scientists have said that it might happen within the next millennium appears to be proof enough that it will happen in four years time. Alas, although this theory has some scientific backing, there is no way that anyone can predict when geomagnetic reversal might happen to the nearest day or to the nearest million years…

Firstly, let's differentiate between geomagnetic reversal and polar shift. Geomagnetic reversal is the change in the magnetic field of the Earth, where the magnetic north pole shifts to the South Polar Region and the south magnetic pole shifts to the North Polar Region. Once this process is complete, our compasses would point toward Antarctica, rather than northern Canada. Polar shift is considered to be a less likely event that occurs a few times in the evolutionary timescale of the Solar System. There are a couple of examples of planets that have suffered a catastrophic polar shift, including Venus (which rotates in an opposite direction to all the other planets, therefore it was flipped upside down by some huge event, such as a planetary collision) and Uranus (which rotates on its side, having been knocked off-axis by an impact, or some gravitational effect caused by Jupiter and Saturn). Many authors (including the doomsayers themselves) often cite both geomagnetic reversal and polar shift as being one of the same thing. This isn't the case.
So, on with geomagnetic reversal…

How often does it happen?

The Earths interior (University of Chicago)

The reasons behind the reversal of the magnetic poles is poorly understood, but it is all down to the internal dynamics of Planet Earth. As our planet spins, the molten iron in the core flows freely, forcing free electrons to flow with it. This convective motion of charged particles sets up a magnetic field which bases its poles in the North and South Polar Regions (a dipole). This is known as the dynamo effect. The resulting magnetic field approximates a bar magnet, allowing the field to envelop our planet.
This magnetic field passes through the core to the crust and pushes into space as the Earth's magnetosphere, a protective bubble constantly being buffeted by the solar wind. As the solar wind particles are usually charged, the Earth's powerful magnetosphere deflects the particles, only allowing them into the polar cusp regions where the polar magnetic fieldlines become "open." The regions at which these energetic particles are allowed to enter glow as aurorae.
Usually this situation can last for aeons (a stable magnetic field threaded through the North and South Polar Regions), but occasionally, the magnetic field is known to reverse and alter in strength. Why is this?

A chart showing Earths polarity reversals over the last 160 million years. Black = normal polarity, White = reversed polarity. From Lowrie (1997)

Again, we simply do not know. We do know that this magnetic pole flip-flop has occurred many times in the last few million years, the last occurred 780,000 years ago according to ferromagnetic sediment. A few scaremongering articles have said geomagnetic reversal occurs with "clockwork regularity" – this is simply not true. As can be seen from the diagram (left), magnetic reversal has occurred fairly chaotically in the last 160 million years. Long-term data suggests that the longest stable period between magnetic "flips" is nearly 40 million years (during the Cretaceous period over 65 million years BC) and the shortest is a few hundred years.
Some 2012 theories suggest that the Earth's geomagnetic reversal is connected to the natural 11-year solar cycle. Again, there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support this claim. No data has ever been produced suggesting a Sun-Earth magnetic polarity change connection.
So, already this doomsday theory falters in that geomagnetic reversal does not occur with "clockwork regularity," and it has no connection with solar dynamics. We are not due a magnetic flip as we cannot predict when the next one is going to occur, magnetic reversals occur at seemingly random points in history.
What causes geomagnetic reversal?

The model Earth, can a magnetic field be modelled in the lab? (Flora Lichtman, NPR)

Research is afoot to try to understand the internal dynamics of our planet. As the Earth spins, the molten iron inside churns and flows in a fairly stable manner for millennia. For some reason during geomagnetic reversal, some instability causes an interruption to the steady generation of a global magnetic field, causing it to flip-flop between the poles. In a previous Universe Today article, we discussed the efforts of geophysicist Dan Lathrop's attempts to create his own "model Earth," setting a 26 tonne ball (containing a molten iron analogue, sodium) spinning to see if the internal motion of the fluid could set up a magnetic field. This huge laboratory experiment is testament to the efforts being put into understanding how our Earth even generates a magnetic field, let alone why it randomly reverses.
A minority view (which, again is used by doomsayers to link geomagnetic reversal with Planet X) is that there may be some external influence that causes the reversal. You will often see associated with the Planet X/Nibiru claims that should this mystery object encounter the inner Solar System during its highly elliptical orbit, the magnetic field disturbance could upset the internal dynamics of the Earth (and the Sun, possibly generating that "killer" solar flare I discussed back in June). This theory is a poor attempt to link several doomsday scenarios with a common harbinger of doom (i.e. Planet X). There is no reason to think the strong magnetic field of the Earth can be influenced by any external force, let alone a non-existent planet (or was that a brown dwarf?).
The magnetic field strength waxes and wanes…

Variations in geomagnetic field in western US since last reversal. The vertical dashed line is the critical value of intensity below which Guyodo and Valet (1999) consider several directional excursions to have occurred.

New research into the Earth's magnetic field was published recently in the September 26th issue of Science, suggesting that the Earth's magnetic field isn't as simple as we once believed. In addition to the North-South dipole, there is a weaker magnetic field spread around the planet, probably generated in the outer core of the Earth. The Earth's magnetic field is measured to vary in field strength and it is a well known fact that the magnetic field strength is currently experiencing a downward trend. The new research paper, co-authored by geochronologist Brad Singer of the University of Wisconsin, suggests that the weaker magnetic field is critical to geomagnetic reversal. Should the stronger dipole (north-south) field reduce below the magnetic field strength of this usually weaker, distributed field, a geomagnetic reversal is possible.
"The field is not always stable, the convection and the nature of the flow changes, and it can cause the dipole that's generated to wax and wane in intensity and strength," Singer said. "When it becomes very weak, it's less capable of reaching to the surface of the Earth, and what you start to see emerge is this non-axial dipole, the weaker part of the field that's left over." Singer's research group analysed samples of ancient lava from volcanoes in Tahiti and Germany between 500,000 and 700,000 years ago. By looking at an iron-rich mineral called magnetite in the lava, the researchers were able to deduce the direction of the magnetic field.
The spin of the electrons in the mineral is governed by the dominant magnetic field. During times of strong dipolar field, these electrons pointed toward the magnetic North Pole. During times of weak dipolar field, the electrons pointed to wherever the dominant field was, in this case the distributed magnetic field. They think that when the weakened dipolar field drops below a certain threshold, the distributed field pulls the dipolar field off-axis, causing a geomagnetic shift.
"The magnetic field is one of the most fundamental features of the Earth," Singer said. "But it's still one of the biggest enigmas in science. Why [the flip] happens is something people have been chasing for more than a hundred years."
Our meandering magnetic pole

The movement of Earth's north magnetic pole across the Canadian arctic, 1831--2001 (Geological Survey of Canada)

Although there appears to be a current downward trend in magnetic field strength, the current magnetic field is still considered to be "above average" when compared with the variations measured in recent history. According to , San Diego, if the magnetic field continued to decrease at the current trend, the dipolar field would effectively be zero in 500 years time. However, it is more likely that the field strength will simply rebound and increase in strength as it has done over the last several thousand years, continuing with its natural fluctuations. The positions of the magnetic poles are also known to be wondering over Arctic and Antarctic locations. Take the magnetic north pole for example (pictured left); it has accelerated north over the Canadian plains from 10 km per year in the 20th Century to 40 km per year more recently. It is thought that if the point of magnetic north continues this trend, it will exit North America and enter Siberia in a few decades time. This is not a new phenomenon however. Ever since James Ross' discovery of the location of the north magnetic pole for the first time in 1831, it's location has meandered hundreds of miles (even though today's measurements show some acceleration).
So, no doomsday then?
Geomagnetic reversal is an engrossing area of geophysical research that will continue to occupy physicists and geologists for many years to come. Although the dynamics behind this event are not fully understood, there is absolutely no scientific evidence supporting the claim that there could be a geomagnetic reversal around the time of December 21st, 2012.
Besides, the effects of such a reversal have been totally over-hyped. Should we experience geomagnetic reversal in our lifetimes (which we probably won't), it is unlikely that we'll be cooked alive by the Solar Wind, or be wiped out by cosmic rays. It is unlikely that we'll suffer any mass extinction event (after all, early man, homo erectus, lived through the last geomagnetic shift, apparently with ease). We'll most likely experience aurorae at all latitudes whilst the dipolar magnetic field settles down to its new, reversed state, and there might be a small increase in energetic particles from space (remember, just because the magnetosphere is weakened, doesn't mean we wont have magnetic protection), but we'll still be (largely) protected by our thick atmosphere.
Satellites may malfunction and migrating birds may become confused, but to predict world collapse is a hard pill to swallow.
In conclusion:

Geomagnetic reversal is chaotic in nature. There is no way we can predict it.
Simply because the magnetic field of the Earth is weakening does not mean it is near collapse. Geomagnetic field strength is "above average" if we compare today's measurements with the last few million years.
The magnetic poles are not set in geographical locations, they move (at varying speeds) and have done ever since measurements began.
There is no evidence to suggest external forcing of internal geomagnetic dynamics of the Earth. Therefore there is no evidence of the solar cycle-geomagnetic shift connection. Don't get me started on Planet X.

So, do you think there will be a geomagnetic reversal event in 2012? I thought not.
Once again, we find another 2012 doomsday scenario to be flawed in so many ways. There is no doubt that geomagnetic reversal will happen in the future for Earth, but we're talking about time scales anything from an optimistic (and unlikely) 500 years to millions of years, certainly not in the coming four years…

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Planet X is not Nibiru ( explosive planet )

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:13:00 +0000

Written by Ian O'Neill

The Solar System's outer reaches still contain many minor planets yet to be discovered. Ever since the search for Planet X began in the early 20th Century, the possibility of a hypothetical planet orbiting the Sun beyond the Kuiper Belt has fuelled many Doomsday theories and speculation that Planet X is actually the Sun's long lost binary sibling. But why the fear about the Planet X/Doomsday combination? Surely Planet X is just an unknown, hypothetical object and nothing sinister?

As I've previously discussed in "2012: No Planet X", doomsayers have linked the modern day search for Planet X, the ancient Mayan 2012 Prophecy and the Sumerian mythical planet Nibiru, culminating in bad news for December 21st 2012. However, the astronomical evidence for these links is seriously flawed.

Yesterday (Wednesday, June 18th), Japanese researchers announced news that their theoretical search for a large mass in the outer Solar System has produced results. From their calculations, there might just be a planet, possibly a bit bigger than a Plutoid but certainly smaller than Earth orbiting beyond 100 AU from the Sun. But before we get carried away, this is not Nibiru, this is not proof of the end of the world in 2012; it is a new and very exciting development in the search for minor planets beyond the Kuiper Belt…

In a new theoretical simulation, two researchers have deduced that the outermost reaches of the Solar System may contain an undiscovered planet. Patryk Lykawka and Tadashi Mukai of Kobe University have published a paper in the Astrophysical Journal detailing a minor planet that they believe may be interacting with the mysterious Kuiper Belt.

Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs)

The Kuiper Belt occupies a huge region of space, approximately 30-50 AU from the Sun. It contains a vast number of rocky and metallic objects, the largest known body being the dwarf planet (or "Plutoid") Eris. It has been known for many years that the Kuiper Belt has a few strange characteristics that may signal the presence of another large planetary body orbiting the Sun beyond the Kuiper Belt. One such feature is the aptly named "Kuiper Cliff" that occurs at 50 AU. This is an abrupt end to the Kuiper Belt, very few Kuiper Belt objects (or KBOs) have been observed beyond this point. This cliff cannot be attributed to orbital resonances with massive planets such as Neptune, and there doesn't appear to be any obvious observational error. Many astronomers believe that such a sharp cut-off in KBO population may be due to an as-yet to be discovered planet, possibly as large as Earth. This is an object Lykawka and Mukai believe they have calculated to exist.

This research predicts a large object, 30-70% the mass of the Earth, orbiting at a distance of around 100-200 AU from the Sun. This object may also help explain why some KBOs and tran-Neptunian objects (TNOs) have some strange orbital characteristics (such as Sedna).
Ever since Pluto was discovered in 1930, astronomers have been looking for another more massive body that could explain the orbital perturbations observed in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. This search became known as the "search for Planet X", which literally meant the "search for an as yet unidentified planet." In the 1980's these perturbations were put down to observational error. Therefore, the modern-day scientific search for Planet X is the search for a large KBO or a minor planet beyond. Although Planet X may not be larger than the mass of the Earth, researchers are still very excited about finding more KBOs, possibly the size of a Plutoid, possibly a little bigger, but not much bigger.

"The interesting thing for me is the suggestion of the kinds of very interesting objects that may yet await discovery in the outer solar system. We are still scratching the edges of that region of the solar system, and I expect many surprises await us with the future deeper surveys." – Mark Sykes, Director of the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona.

Planet X is not scary

So where does Nibiru come in? Back in 1976 a controversial book called "The Twelfth Planet" was written by Zecharia Sitchin. Sitchin had interpreted some ancient Sumerian cuneiform texts (the earliest known form of writing) as a literal translation of the origin of humankind. These 6000 year old texts apparently reveal that an alien race known as the Anunnaki travelled to Earth on a planet called Nibiru. It's a long and involved story, but in a nutshell, the Anunnaki genetically modified primates on Earth to create homo sapiens to be their slaves. (I just worked out where the storyline for Kurt Russell's 1994 movie Stargate probably came from…)
When the Anunnaki left Earth, they let us rule the planet until they return. All this may seem a little fantastical, and perhaps a little too detailed when considering it is a literal translation from 6000 year old texts. Sitchin's work has been disregarded by the scientific community as many of his methods of interpretation are considered imaginative at best. Nevertheless, many people have taken Sitchin's work literally, and believe Nibiru (in its highly eccentric orbit around the Sun) will be returning, possibly as soon as 2012 to cause all sorts of terror and destruction here on Earth. It is important to note here that I am not calling into question any archaeological, spiritual or historic evidence for Nibiru, I am simply pointing out the link between the 2012 Doomsday Planet X theory is based on very dubious astronomical "discoveries"; if this is the case, how can Planet X be considered to be the embodiment of Nibiru?
Then there's the IRAS "discovery of a brown dwarf in the outer Solar System" in 1984 and the "NASA announcement of a 4-8 Earth mass planet travelling toward Earth" in 1993. Doomsayers (often with a book to sell) cling on to these astronomical discoveries as proof that Nibiru is in fact the Planet X astronomers have been searching for over the last century. Not only that, by manipulating the facts about these scientific studies, they "prove" that Nibiru is travelling toward us, and by 2012, this massive body will pass through the inner Solar System, causing all sorts of gravitational damage. For more information on this topic, see "2012: No Planet X."
In its purest form, Planet X is an unknown, theoretically possible planet orbiting peacefully beyond the Kuiper Belt. If yesterday's announcement does lead to the observation of a planet or Plutoid, it will be an incredible discovery that will help to shed some light on the evolution and characteristics of the mysterious outer reaches of the Solar System.

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But as I write, I can guarantee that doomsayers are adapting this new research to be used as support for their nonsensical theories that Planet X is in fact Nibiru, and it's coming in our direction by 2012. Why do I get the feeling we'll still be here in the year 2013?

There is no Planet X

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:01:00 +0000

Written by Ian O'Neil

Apparently, Planet X (a.k.a. Nibiru) was spotted by astronomers in the early 1980's in the outermost reaches of the Solar System. It has been tracked by infrared observatories; seen lurking around in the Kuiper Belt and now it is speeding right toward us and will enter the inner Solar System in 2012. So what does this mean to us? Well, the effects of the approach of Planet X on our planet will be biblical, and what's more the effects are being felt right now. Millions, even billions of people will die, global warming will increase; earthquakes, drought, famine, wars, social collapse, even killer solar flares will be caused by Nibiru blasting through the core of the Solar System. All of this will happen in 2012, and we must begin preparing for our demise right now…

As investigated in my previous article "No Doomsday in 2012", a lot of weight had been placed on the end of an ancient Mayan calendar, the "Long Count". According to this calendar and Mayan myth, something is going to happen on December 21st, 2012. Now the world's Planet X supporters seem to have calculated that this hypothetical, deadly planet will arrive from a highly eccentric orbit to wreak gravitational havoc on Earth, sparking geological, social, economic and environmental damage, killing a high proportion of life… in 2012.

I'm sorry, but the "facts" behind the Planet X/Nibiru myth simply do not add up. Don't worry, Planet X will not be knocking on our door in 2012 and here's why…

Nibiru and Planet X

In 1843, John Couch Adams (a British mathematician and astronomer) studied the orbital perturbations of Uranus and deduced that through gravitational interactions, there must be an eighth planet, tugging at the gas giant. This led to the discovery of Neptune, orbiting at a distance of 30AU from the Sun. There have been numerous occasions where this method has been used to deduce the existence of other bodies in the Solar System before they were directly observed.
Neptune was also experiencing orbital perturbations, and on the discovery of Pluto in 1930, it was thought that the aptly named "Planet X" had been discovered. Alas, Pluto's mass was tiny, and once the orbit of Charon (Pluto's moon) was analysed it was found that the mass of the Pluto-Charon system was far too small to affect the orbit of Neptune. The hunt for Planet X continued…
After years of speculation and historic research, it was believed that a huge body astronomers were looking for was a huge planet or a small star, possibly a companion to our Sun (making the Solar System a binary system). The name "Nibiru" was unearthed by the author Zecharia Sitchin, on researching the possible intervention of extraterrestrials in the early history of mankind. Nibiru is a hypothetical planet as taught in ancient Sumerian culture (the Sumerians existed from around 6,000BC to 3,000BC, predating Babylon, in the current geographic location of Iraq). There is very little archaeological evidence to suggest this mythical planet has anything to do with Planet X. But since this dubious connection, Planet X and Nibiru are now thought by doomsayers to be the same thing, an ancient astronomical body that has returned after a long orbit beyond the Solar System.
OK, so the Nibiru/Planet X connection might be a bit ropey already, but is there any solid evidence for the modern-day Planet X?
Infrared observations = Planet X

There is much emphasis placed on the 1983 "discovery" of a mysterious heavenly body by NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) on the outskirts of the Solar system, some 50 billion miles (540 AU) away. Naturally the world's media will have been very excited by such a discovery and began making noises that perhaps this was Planet X (the most popular accessible resources for Planet X advocates is the Washington Post article published on December 31st 1983 titled "Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered"). In actuality, astronomers weren't sure what the infrared object was (the clue is in the word "mystery"). Initial media reports postulated that it could be a long-period comet, or a planet, or a far-off young galaxy or a protostar (i.e. a brown dwarf). As soon as the last possibility is mentioned, suddenly this became the "discovery" that Planet X was in fact a brown dwarf orbiting in the outer reaches of our Solar System.

"So mysterious is the object that astronomers do not know if it is a planet, a giant comet, a nearby "protostar" that never got hot enough to become a star, a distant galaxy so young that it is still in the process of forming its first stars or a galaxy so shrouded in dust that none of the light cast by its stars ever gets through." – Thomas O'Toole, Washington Post Staff Writer, December 30th 1983 (from text on the Planet X and Pole Shift website)

So where did the Washington Post get its story? The story was published in response to the research printed a paper titled "Unidentified point sources in the IRAS minisurvey" (by Houck et al, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, 278:L63, 1984). Dr. Gerry Neugebauer, co-investigator in the IRAS project, was interviewed and strongly stated that what IRAS had seen was not "incoming mail" (i.e. the results did not suggest there was an object approaching Earth). On reading this interesting research, I was especially drawn to the paper's conclusion:

"A number of candidate identifications have been considered including near-solar system, galactic, and extragalactic objects. Further observations at infrared and other wavelengths may provide additional information in support of one of these conjectures, or perhaps these objects will require entirely different interpretations." – Houck et al, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 278:L63, 1984.

Although these IRAS observations were seeing mysterious objects, at this stage, there was no indication that there was an object (let alone a brown dwarf) powering its way toward us. But the rumours had already begun to flow. When follow-up papers were published in 1985 (Unidentified IRAS sources – Ultrahigh-luminosity galaxies, Houck et al., 1985) and 1987 (The IRAS View of the Extragalactic Sky, Soifer et al., 1987), there was little if any media interest in their findings. According to these publications, most of the IRAS observations in the 1984 paper were distant, ultra-luminous young galaxies and one was a filamentary structure known as "infrared cirrus" floating in intergalactic space. IRAS never observed any astronomical body in the outer reaches of the Solar System.
Orbital perturbations = Planet X

In addition to the 1983 "discovery" of the Planet X brown dwarf, the 1992 Planet X claim goes something like this: "Unexplained deviations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune point to a large outer solar system body of 4 to 8 Earth masses, on a highly tilted orbit, beyond 7 billion miles from the sun," – text from an un-cited NASA source on the "Planet X Forecast and 2012 Survival Guide" video.
Pulling up the discovery of planets using orbital perturbation measurements, Planet X advocates point to a NASA announcement that in 1992, there were indirect measurements of a planet some 7 billion miles from Earth. Alas, I cannot find the original source for this claim. The only huge discovery NASA announced along these lines was the discovery of the first major trans-Neptunian object (TNO) called 1992 QB₁ (full details of the discovery of this "cubewano-class" object can be found in the original announcement transcript). It has a diameter of 200km and is confined to the Kuiper Belt, a zone of minor planets (where Pluto lives) and asteroids from 30AU to 55AU, just outside Neptune's orbit. Some of these bodies (like Pluto) cross the path of Neptune's orbit and there therefore designated as a TNO. These TNO's pose no threat to the Earth (in as much as they wont be leaving the Kuiper Belt to pay us a visit in 2012).
Since then, any Neptune orbital perturbations have been put down to observational error and have since not been observed… so there doesn't appear to be any obvious object any bigger than the largest Kuiper Belt objects out there. Still, to keep an open mind, there could be more large bodies to be discovered (that might explain why there is such a steep drop-off of Kuiper Belt objects at the "Kuiper Cliff", the jury is out on that idea), but there is no evidence for a massive body approaching from the vicinity of the Kuiper Belt. Even the strange Pioneer anomaly that the Pioneer and Voyager probes are experiencing cannot be attributed to Planet X. This anomaly appears to be a Sun-ward acceleration, if there was a massive planet out there, there should be some gravitational effect beyond what has been predicted by the other known objects in the Solar System.
4-8 Earth masses = a brown dwarf? It must be Planet X.

Probably the most glaring inconsistency in the Planet X hypothesis is the Planet X advocates assertion that the 1984 IRAS object and the 1992 body are one of the same thing. As announced on many websites and online videos about Planet X, the 1984 IRAS observation saw Planet X at 50 billion miles from Earth. The 1992 NASA "announcement" put Planet X at a distance of about 7 billion miles from Earth. Therefore, the logic goes, Planet X had travelled 43 billion miles in the course of only eight years (from 1984 to 1992). After some dubious mathematics, Planet X is therefore expected to reach the core of the Solar System in 2012. (Although many believed it should arrive in 2003… they were obviously wrong about that prediction.)
Well, I think we might be clutching at straws here. For starters, for the 1984 object to be the same as the 1992 object, surely they should be the same mass? If Planet X was a brown dwarf (as we are led to believe in the IRAS observations), how can it possibly weigh in at only 4 to 8 Earth masses eight years later? Brown dwarfs have a mass of around 15-80 Jupiter masses. As Jupiter is about 318 Earth masses, surely the object hurtling toward us should have a mass of somewhere between 4,770 and 25,440 Earth masses? So I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I reckon the 1984 object and the 1992 object (if either object actually existed that is) are not the same thing. Not by a very long shot.
If there is no evidence supporting Planet X, it must be a conspiracy
If it can be this easy to cast the fundamental "scientific" theory behind Planet X into doubt, I see little point in discussing the historical reasons (mass extinctions, volcanic activity, earthquakes etc.) as to why the doomsayers believe Planet X should exist. If there is no renegade planet out there of significant mass, how can Nibiru be a threat to us in 2012?
They will have us believe there is a global conspiracy of international governments hiding the facts from us. NASA is involved in the cover-up, hence the lack of evidence. In my opinion, simply because there is no evidence, doesn't mean there is a conspiracy to hide the truth from the public. So why would governments want to hide a "discovery" as historic as a doomsday planet approaching the inner Solar System anyway? To avoid mass panic and pursue their own, greedy agendas (obviously).
As it turns out, this is the only strength behind the Planet X myth. When confronted with scientific facts, the Planet X advocates reply with "…governments are sending out disinformation and covering up the true observations of Nibiru." Although I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, I will not support anything in the name of Planet X. If the basic science behind what we are led to believe are the foundation of Planet X existing is wrong, it seems a poor argument to say "the government did it".
Therefore, the story that Planet X will arrive in 2012 is, in my view, total bunkum (but it helps to sell doomsday books and DVDs by scaring people). Nibiru will remain in the realms of Sumerian myth.

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Planet X

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:54:00 +0000

Written by Abby Cessna

You may have already heard something about planet X or the 2012 doomsday predictions. The idea of planet X, and the search for the elusive planet, started in the middle of the 19th century after Neptune was discovered, since many astronomers believed there was another planet beyond Neptune’s orbit. In the early 1900’s, the famous astronomer Percival Lowell searched for planet X and claimed that this mysterious planet was the reason why there were discrepancies in the orbits of the gas giants in our Solar System. When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930, it was believed to be planet X, confirming the hypotheses of Percival Lowell and many other astronomers. However, in 1978, astronomers discovered that Pluto could not be planet X because it was too small to affect the orbits of the gas giants.

After this discovery, some astronomers continued to look for planet X. Robert Harrington was one astronomer who continued the quest throughout the 80’s and 90’s. By the time of his death in 1993, he had not found planet X. A number of other scientists, including Joseph Brady, proposed their own theories regarding planet X. Just a few months before Harrington’s death, the astronomer Myles Standish calculated Neptune’s mass with the Voyager 2 probe. When calculations were done with this revised mass, the discrepancies regarding Uranus’ orbit disappeared. This led scientists to conclude that no planet X, at least Percival Lowell’s version, exists.
You may be wondering what the situation concerning planet X and 2012 is. Well, 2012 – December 21st 2012 to be exact – has been marked as the day the world will end, at least according to some people. This date has been picked as the end of the world because this is the day when the Mayan calendar ends. (The Mayans’ developed a Long Count calendar that lasts 5126 years, and it runs out on the 21st of December in 2012.)This has spurned numerous theories on why this is going to be the end of our world. The whole Mayan Prophecy theory is based on the idea that when the calendar runs out, something terrible will happen.
Well that is where planet X fits in for some. One of the many theories as to how humanity will be abolished in 2012 is by planet X crashing into Earth and destroying all life. To further complicate matters, some people who believe in 2012 have also linked planet X as being the same as Nibiru. The Nibiru theory says that an alien race came to Earth on the planet Nibiru thousands of years ago and genetically altered beings into humans in order to serve them. Nibiru is supposed to return in 2012 to cause havoc and destruction.

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No Killer Solar Flare - No risk

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:47:00 +0000

2012: No Killer Solar Flare

Written by Ian O'Neill

We could be in for a huge firework display in 2012. The Sun will be approaching the peak of its 11-year cycle, called "solar maximum", so we can expect a lot of solar activity. Some predictions put the solar maximum of Solar Cycle 24 even more energetic than the last solar maximum in 2002-2003 (remember all those record breaking X-class flares?). Solar physicists are already getting excited about this next cycle and new prediction methods are being put to good use. But should we be worried?

According to one of the many Doomsday scenarios we have been presented with in the run-up to the Mayan Prophecy-fuelled "end of the world" in the year 2012, this scenario is actually based on some science. What's more, there may be some correlation between the 11-year solar cycle and the time cycles seen in the Mayan calendar, perhaps this ancient civilization understood how the Sun's magnetism undergoes polarity changes every decade or so? Plus, religious texts (such as the Bible) say that we are due for a day of judgement, involving a lot of fire and brimstone. So it looks like we are going to get roasted alive by our closest star on December 21st, 2012!
Before we go jumping to conclusions, take a step back and think this through. Like most of the various ways the world is going to end in 2012, the possibility of the Sun blasting out a huge, Earth-damaging solar flare is very attractive to the doomsayers out there. But let's have a look at what really happens during an Earth-directed solar flare event, the Earth is actually very well protected. Although some satellites may not be…

The Earth has evolved in a highly radioactive environment. The Sun constantly fires high-energy particles from its magnetically dominated surface as the solar wind. During solar maximum (when the Sun is at its most active), the Earth may be unlucky enough to be staring down the barrel of an explosion with the energy of 100 billion Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs. This explosion is known as a solar flare and the effects of which can cause problems here on Earth.
Before we look at the Earth-side effects, let's have a look at the Sun and briefly understand why it gets so angry every 11 years or so.

The Solar Cycle

First and foremost, the Sun has a natural cycle with a period of approximately 11 years. During the lifetime of each cycle, the magnetic field lines of the Sun are dragged around the solar body by differential rotation at the solar equator. This means that the equator is spinning faster than the magnetic poles. As this continues, solar plasma drags the magnetic field lines around the Sun, causing stress and a build up of energy (an illustration of this is pictured). As magnetic energy increases, kinks in the magnetic flux form, forcing them to the surface. These kinks are known as coronal loops which become more numerous during periods of high solar activity.
This is where the sunspots come in. As coronal loops continue to pop up over the surface, sunspots appear too, often located at the loop footpoints. Coronal loops have the effect of pushing the hotter surface layers of the Sun (the photosphere and chromosphere) aside, exposing the cooler convection zone (the reasons why the solar surface and atmosphere is hotter than the solar interior is down to the coronal heating phenomenon). As magnetic energy builds up, we can expect more and more magnetic flux to be forced together. This is when a phenomenon known as magnetic reconnection occurs.
Reconnection is the trigger for solar flares of various sizes. As previously reported, solar flares from "nanoflares" to "X-class flares" are very energetic events. Granted, the largest flares my generate enough energy for 100 billion atomic explosions, but don't let this huge figure concern you. For a start, this flare occurs in the low corona, right near the solar surface. That's nearly 100 million miles away (1AU). The Earth is nowhere close to the blast.
As the solar magnetic field lines release a huge amount of energy, solar plasma is accelerated and confined within the magnetic environment (solar plasma is superheated particles like protons, electrons and some light elements such as helium nuclei). As the plasma particles interact, X-rays may be generated if the conditions are right and bremsstrahlung is possible. (Bremsstrahlung occurs when charged particles interact, resulting in X-ray emission.) This may create an X-ray flare.

The Problem with X-ray Solar Flares

The biggest problem with an X-ray flare is that we get little warning when it is going to happen as X-rays travel at the speed of light (one of the record breaking 2003 solar flares is pictured left). X-rays from an X-class flare will reach the Earth in around eight minutes. As X-rays hit our atmosphere, they are absorbed in the outermost layer called the ionosphere. As you can guess from the name, this is a highly charged, reactive environment, full of ions (atomic nuclei, and free electrons).
During powerful solar events such as flares, rates of ionization between X-rays and atmospheric gases increase in the D and E region layers of the ionosphere. There is a sudden surge in electron production in these layers. These electrons can cause interference to the passage of radio waves through the atmosphere, absorbing short wave radio signals (in the high frequency range), possibly blocking global communications. These events are known as "Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances" (or SIDs) and they become commonplace during periods of high solar activity. Interestingly, the increase in electron density during a SID boosts the propagation of Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio, a phenomenon scientists use to measure the intensity of X-rays coming from the Sun.

Coronal Mass Ejections?

X-ray solar flare emissions are only part of the story. If the conditions are right, a coronal mass ejection (CME) might be produced at the site of the flare (although either phenomenon can occur independently). CMEs are slower than the propagation of X-rays, but their global effects here on Earth can be more problematic. They may not travel at the speed of light, but they still travel fast; they can travel at a rate of 2 million miles per hour (3.2 million km/hr), meaning they may reach us in a matter of hours.
This is where much effort is being put into space weather prediction. We have a handful of spacecraft sitting between the Earth and the Sun at the Earth-Sun Lagrangian (L₁) point with sensors on board to measure the energy and intensity of the solar wind. Should a CME pass through their location, energetic particles and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) can be measured directly. One mission called the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) sits in the L₁ point and provides scientists with up to an hour notice on the approach of a CME. ACE teams up with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO), so CMEs can be tracked from the lower corona into interplanetary space, through the L₁ point toward Earth. These solar missions are actively working together to provide space agencies with advanced notice of an Earth-directed CME.
So what if a CME reaches Earth? For a start, much depends on the magnetic configuration of the IMF (from the Sun) and the geomagnetic field of the Earth (the magnetosphere). Generally speaking, if both magnetic fields are aligned with polarities pointing in the same direction, it is highly probable that the CME will be repelled by the magnetosphere. In this case, the CME will slide past the Earth, causing some pressure and distortion on the magnetosphere, but otherwise passing without a problem. However, if the magnetic field lines are in an anti-parallel configuration (i.e. magnetic polarities in opposite directions), magnetic reconnection may occur at the leading edge of the magnetosphere.
In this event, the IMF and magnetosphere will merge, connecting the Earth's magnetic field with the Sun's. This sets the scene for one of the most awe inspiring events in nature: the aurora.
Satellites in Peril
As the CME magnetic field connects with the Earth's, high energy particles are injected into the magnetosphere. Due to solar wind pressure, the Sun's magnetic field lines will fold around the Earth, sweeping behind our planet. The particles injected in the "dayside" will be funnelled into the polar regions of the Earth where they interact with our atmosphere, generating light as aurorae. During this time, the Van Allen belt will also become "super-charged", creating a region around the Earth that could cause problems to unprotected astronauts and any unshielded satellites. For more on the damage that can be caused to astronauts and spacecraft, check out "Radiation Sickness, Cellular Damage and Increased Cancer Risk for Long-term Missions to Mars" and "New Transistor Could Side-Step Space Radiation Problem."
As if the radiation from the Van Allen belt wasn't enough, satellites could succumb to the threat of an expanding atmosphere. As you'd expect, as if the Sun hits the Earth with X-rays and CMEs, there will be inevitable heating and global expansion of the atmosphere, possibly encroaching into satellite orbital altitudes. If left unchecked, an aerobraking effect on satellites could cause them to slow and drop in altitude. Aerobraking has been used extensively as a space flight tool to slow spacecraft down when being inserted into orbit around another planet, but this will have an adverse effect on satellites orbiting Earth as any slowing of velocity could cause it to re-enter the atmosphere.

We Feel the Effects on the Ground Too

Although satellites are on the front line, if there is a powerful surge in energetic particles entering the atmosphere, we may feel the adverse effects down here on Earth too. Due to the X-ray generation of electrons in the ionosphere, some forms of communication may become patchy (or be removed all together), but this isn't all that can happen. Particularly in high-latitude regions, a vast electric current, known as an "electrojet", may form through the ionosphere by these incoming particles. With an electric current comes a magnetic field. Depending on the intensity of the solar storm, currents may be induced down here on the ground, possibly overloading national power grids. On March 13th 1989, six million people lost power in the Quebec region of Canada after a huge increase in solar activity caused a surge from ground-induced currents. Quebec was paralysed for nine hours whilst engineers worked on a solution to the problem.

Can Our Sun Produce a Killer Flare?

The short answer to this is "no".
The longer answer is a little more involved. Whilst a solar flare from out Sun, aimed directly at us, could cause secondary problems such as satellite damage and injury to unprotected astronauts and blackouts, the flare itself is not powerful enough to destroy Earth, certainly not in 2012. I dare say, in the far future when the Sun begins to run out of fuel and swell into a red giant, it might be a bad era for life on Earth, but we have a few billion years to wait for that to happen. There could even be the possibility of several X-class flares being launched and by pure bad luck we may get hit by a series of CMEs and X-ray bursts, but none will be powerful to overcome our magnetosphere, ionosphere and thick atmosphere below.
"Killer" solar flares have been observed on other stars. In 2006, NASA's Swift observatory saw the largest stellar flare ever observed 135 light-years away. Estimated to have unleashed an energy of 50 million trillion atomic bombs, the II Pegasi flare will have wiped out most life on Earth if our Sun fired X-rays from a flare of that energy at us. However, our Sun is not II Pegasi. II Pegasi is a violent red giant star with a binary partner in a very close orbit. It is believed the gravitational interaction with its binary partner and the fact II Pegasi is a red giant is the root cause behind this energetic flare event.
Doomsayers point to the Sun as a possible Earth-killer source, but the fact remains that our Sun is a very stable star. It does not have a binary partner (like II Pegasi), it has a predictable cycle (of approximately 11 years) and there is no evidence that our Sun contributed to any mass extinction event in the past via a huge Earth-directed flare. Very large solar flares have been observed (such as the 1859 Carrington white light flare)… but we are still here.
In an added twist, solar physicists are surprised by the lack of solar activity at the start of this 24th solar cycle, leading to some scientists to speculate we might be on the verge of another Maunder minimum and "Little Ice Age". This is in stark contrast to NASA solar physicist's 2006 prediction that this cycle will be a "doozy".
This leads me to conclude that we still have a long way to go when predicting solar flare events. Although space weather prediction is improving, it will be a few years yet until we can read the Sun accurately enough to say with any certainty just how active a solar cycle is going to be. So, regardless of prophecy, prediction or myth, there is no physical way to say that the Earth will be hit by any flare, let alone a big one in 2012. Even if a big flare did hit us, it will not be an extinction event. Yes, satellites may be damaged, causing secondary problems such as a GPS loss (which might disrupt air traffic control for example) or national power grids may be overwhelmed by auroral electrojets, but nothing more extreme than that.
But hold on, to sidestep this issue, doomsayers now tell us that a large solar flare will hit us just as the Earth's geomagnetic field weakens and reverses, leaving us unprotected from the ravages of a CME… The reasons why this is not going to happen in 2012 is worthy of its own article. So, look out for the next 2012 article "2012: No Geomagnetic Reversal".

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2012 දෙසැම්බර් 21 කුමක් සිදුවෙයිද? - සත්‍ය දැනගන්න

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:36:00 +0000

2012 දෙසැම්බර් 21 කුමක් සිදුවෙයිද? - සත්‍ය දැනගන්න
Article by Pavithra Lamahewa

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'' විභාගෙ කරාට වැඩක් නෑ.මේ ඹක්කොම 2012 දි ඉවරයිනෙ......"" මේ කථාව ඔබත් ‍ඔබේ මිතුරන්ට පවසා ඇති. ඇත්ත‍ටම 2012 දි කුමක් සිදුවෙයිද?

2012 කථාබහ කරළිය‍‍ට පැමිණියේ Roland Emmerich විසින් අධ්‍යක්ෂණය කල 2012 ‍චිත්‍රප‍ටය හදුන්වා දුන් පසුවයි. ඇත්තටම ඊ‍ට පෙර මේ ගැන සංවාදයක් ඇතිවී තිබුනාද? නැත. ‍අධ්‍යක්ෂකවරයා චිත්‍රපටය තිරගතවීම‍ට වසර ගණනාවකට පෙර සිට 2012 ගැන සංවාදයක් ඇරඹීය, මිනිසුන් තුල බියක් ඇති කලේය. අවසානයේ සිදුවූයේ කුමක්ද? 2012 චිත්‍රපටය බොක්ස් ඔෆිස් වාර්තා බිද දමමින් තිරගත වීමයි. විචාරකයන් පවසන අන්දමට මෙහි සජීවිකරණය ඉහළ මට්ටමක පැවතුනත් තිර රචනය ඉතාමත් දුර්වල මට්ටමක පවතී. මෙය ඔහු විසින් නිර්මාණය කළ The day after tommorow චිත්‍රපටයට වඩා ඉතාමක් දුර්වල මට්ටමක පවතී. නමුත් මෙය The day after tommorow චිත්‍රපටය‍ට වඩා වීශාල ආදායමක් ලැබීය. හේතුව නම් ඔහුගේ පූර්ව ප්‍රචාරක සැලසුම්ය.

ඇත්ත කුමක්ද?. මායා ශිෂ්ඨාචාරය විවිධ අධ්‍යාත්මික බල‍යන්ගෙන් පිරි බුද්ධිමත් ජාතියක් ලෙස සැලකේ. ඔවු‍න්ගේ නිර්මාණය කල දින දර්ශනය‍ට‍ අනුව 2012 දෙසැම්බර් 21 දින ඔවුන්‍‍ගේ දින දර්ශනය‍ අවසන් වේ. එතැන් ප‍ටන් අලුත් දින දර්ශනයක්, අලුත් ලොවක් ඇරඹෙන බව ඹවු‍න්‍ගේ අදහසයි.

සමහර මිනිසුන් විශ්වාස කරන්නේ එදින ලෝක විනාශය සිදුවන බවයි. එක් නිගමනයක් නම් භූමි කම්පා ඇතිවීම,සුනාමි ඇතිවීම, ඇමරිකාවේ පොලව ය‍ට පිහිටි ලොව විශාලම ගින්කන්ද පුපුරා එයින් ඇතිවන ධූලි වලාව, සහ පෘතුවියේ චුම් ධ්‍රැව මාරැ වීමයි. තවත් නිගමනයක් නම් උල්කාපාතයක් පෘතුවිය‍ට කඩා වැදී මෙම විනාශය සිදුවන බවයි.
මෙන්න මෙවා‍ට පිලිතුරැ.

-2012 දී උල්කාපාතයක් කඩා වැටීමේ සම්භාවිතාවක් කෙසේවත් නැති බව NASA ආයතනය පවසයි. උල්කාපාතයන් කඩන් වැටෙන බව පවසන්නේ දෛවඥයන් මිසක් විද්‍යාඥයන් නොවේ.

- නුදුරැ අනාගතයේ පෘතු‍වියේ ධ්‍රැව මාරැවක් සිදුවීමේ ඉඩකඩක් ඇති බව NASA ආයතනය තහවුරැ කරයි. මී‍ට වසර 780,00 ක‍ට පෙර ද මෙසේ චුම්භක ධ්‍රැව මාරැවක් සිදුවූ බව පැවසේ. බොහෝ දෙනා පවසන්නේ 2012 දී මෙය සිදුවීමට ඉඩකඩ ඇතිබවයි. ඇත්තටම මෙය සිදුවීමට ඉඩකඩ ඇත. ධ්‍රැව මාරැවීමක් මගින් සියලුදෙයටම,සන්නිවේදන මාර්ග, සියලු සත්‍යයන්‍ට, මනුෂ්‍යන්‍ට පවා බලපෑමක් ඇතිකරයි. නමුත්! ‍ඒ ගැන කථා කරන කවුරැත් මේ ගැන පවසනවාද?.. ධ්‍රැව මාරැවක් සම්පූර්ණ වීමට අවම වශයෙන් වසර 5,000 ගත වන බව විද්‍යාඥයන් පවසයි. එබැවින් 2012 දී මෙය ආරම්භ වුවහොත් සිදුවන්නේ කුමක්ද?... සිදුවීම‍මට ඉඩකඩ ඇති දරැණුම දෙයනම් තාවකාලිකව ජංගම දුරකථන, GPS වැනි උපකරණ විසන්ධි වීමයි.

ඉතින් දැන් ඔබ සිත්න්නේ කුමක්ද? ... එසේනම් 2012 ගැන මෙතරම් කථාබහක් ඇතිවී තිබෙන්නේ ඇයිද යන්නද?
ඉහත සදහන් කල පරිදි 2012 චිත්‍රපටයෙන් ඇරඹුණු මෙම කථාබහ බොහෝ පුද්ගලයන්‍ට ආදායම් මාර්ග වී ඇත. ‍ඹවුන් මෙය ‍‍චිත්‍රපටයෙන් පමණක් සීමා නොකර තවදුරටත් අලෙවි කරයි. පහත වීඩියෝව නරඹන්න.

දැන් ඔබ සත්‍ය වටහා ගත්තාද?. ‍බුද්ධීයෙන් වටහාගෙන ක‍ටයුතු කරන්න.

ඔබේ වටිනා අදහසුත් මෙහි පලකරන්න. මෙම ලිපිය තවදුරටත් පුලුල් කිරීමට මා අදහස් කර ඇත.

ලිව්වේ - පවිත්‍ර ලමාහේවා

All about Mayan Calender

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:55:00 +0000

Maya calendar

The Maya calendar is actually a system of distinct calendars and almanacs used by the Maya civilization of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and by some modern Maya communities in highland Guatemala.
These calendars could be synchronised and interlocked in complex ways, their combinations giving rise to further, more extensive cycles. The essentials of the Maya calendric system are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 6th century BCE. It shares many aspects with calendars employed by other earlier Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Zapotec and Olmec, and contemporary or later ones such as the Mixtec and Aztec calendars. Although the Mesoamerican calendar did not originate with the Maya, their subsequent extensions and refinements of it were the most sophisticated. Along with those of the Aztecs, the Maya calendars are the best-documented and most completely understood.
By the Maya mythological tradition, as documented in Colonial Yucatec accounts and reconstructed from Late Classic and Postclassic inscriptions, the deity Itzamna is frequently credited with bringing the knowledge of the calendar system to the ancestral Maya, along with writing in general and other foundational aspects of Maya culture.

General overview

The most important of these calendars is one with a period of 260 days. This 260-day calendar was prevalent across all Mesoamerican societies, and is of great antiquity (almost certainly the oldest of the calendars). It is still used in some regions of Oaxaca, and amongst the Maya communities of the Guatemalan highlands. The Maya version is commonly known to scholars as the Tzolkin, or Tzolk'in in the revised orthography of the Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala^[2]. The Tzolk'in combined with another 365-day calendar (known as the Haab, or Haab' ), to form a synchronized cycle lasting for 52 Haabs, called the Calendar Round. Smaller cycles of 13 days (the trecena) and 20 days (the veintena) were important components of the Tzolk'in and Haab' cycles, respectively.
A different form of calendar was used to track longer periods of time, and for the inscription of calendar dates (i.e., identifying when one event occurred in relation to others). This form, known as the Long Count, is based upon the number of elapsed days since a mythological starting-point.^[3] According to the correlation between the Long Count and Western calendars accepted by the great majority of Maya researchers (known as the GMT correlation), this starting-point is equivalent to 11 August, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or 6 September in the Julian calendar (−3113 astronomical). The Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation was chosen by Thompson in 1935 based on earlier correlations by Joseph Goodman in 1905 (11 August), Juan Martínez Hernández in 1926 (12 August), and John Eric Sydney Thompson in 1927 (13 August) ^[4]^[5] By its linear nature, the Long Count was capable of being extended to refer to any date far into the future (or past). This calendar involved the use of a positional notation system, in which each position signified an increasing multiple of the number of days. The Maya numeral system was essentially vigesimal (i.e., base-20), and each unit of a given position represented 20 times the unit of the position which preceded it. An important exception was made for the second place value, which instead represented 18 × 20, or 360 days, more closely approximating the solar year than would 20 × 20 = 400 days. It should be noted however that the cycles of the Long Count are independent of the solar year.
Many Maya Long Count inscriptions are supplemented by what is known as the Lunar Series, another calendar form which provides information on the lunar phase and position of the Moon in a half-yearly cycle of lunations.
A 584-day Venus cycle was also maintained, which tracked the appearance and conjunctions of Venus as the morning and evening stars. Many events in this cycle were seen as being inauspicious and baleful, and occasionally warfare was timed (using electional astrology) to coincide with stages in this cycle.
Other, less-prevalent or poorly-understood cycles, combinations and calendar progressions were also tracked. An 819-day count is attested in a few inscriptions; repeating sets of 9- and 13-day intervals associated with different groups of deities, animals and other significant concepts are also known.

Maya concepts of time

With the development of the place-notational Long Count calendar (believed to have been inherited from other Mesoamerican cultures), the Maya had an elegant system with which events could be recorded in a linear relationship to one another, and also with respect to the calendar ("linear time") itself. In theory, this system could readily be extended to delineate any length of time desired, by simply adding to the number of higher-order place markers used (and thereby generating an ever-increasing sequence of day-multiples, each day in the sequence uniquely identified by its Long Count number). In practice, most Maya Long Count inscriptions confine themselves to noting only the first 5 coefficients in this system (a b'ak'tun-count), since this was more than adequate to express any historical or current date (with an equivalent span of approximately 5125 solar years). Even so, example inscriptions exist which noted or implied lengthier sequences, indicating that the Maya well understood a linear (past-present-future) conception of time.
However, and in common with other Mesoamerican societies, the repetition of the various calendric cycles, the natural cycles of observable phenomena, and the recurrence and renewal of death-rebirth imagery in their mythological traditions were important and pervasive influences upon Maya societies. This conceptual view, in which the "cyclical nature" of time is highlighted, was a pre-eminent one, and many rituals were concerned with the completion and re-occurrences of various cycles. As the particular calendaric configurations were once again repeated, so too were the "supernatural" influences with which they were associated. Thus it was held that particular calendar configurations had a specific "character" to them, which would influence events on days exhibiting that configuration. Divinations could then be made from the auguries associated with a certain configuration, since events taking place on some future date would be subject to the same influences as its corresponding previous cycle dates. Events and ceremonies would be timed to coincide with auspicious dates, and avoid inauspicious ones.^[6]
The completion of significant calendar cycles ("period endings"), such as a k'atun-cycle, were often marked by the erection and dedication of specific monuments such as twin-pyramid complexes such those in Tikal and Yaxha, but (mostly in stela inscriptions) commemorating the completion, accompanied by dedicatory ceremonies.
A cyclical interpretation is also noted in Maya creation accounts, in which the present world and the humans in it were preceded by other worlds (one to five others, depending on the tradition) which were fashioned in various forms by the gods, but subsequently destroyed. The present world also had a tenuous existence, requiring the supplication and offerings of periodic sacrifice to maintain the balance of continuing existence. Similar themes are found in the creation accounts of other Mesoamerican societies.^[7]

Tzolk'in

Some Mayanists employ the name Tzolk'in (in modern Mayan orthography]]; also and formerly commonly written tzolkin) for the Maya Sacred Round or 260-day calendar. Tzolk'in is coined in Yukatek Maya, to mean "count of days" (Coe 1992). The actual names of this calendar as used by Precolumbian Maya peoples are still debated by scholars. The Aztec calendar equivalent was called Tonalpohualli, in the Nahuatl language.
The Tzolk'in calendar combines twenty day names with the thirteen numbers of the trecena cycle to produce 260 unique days. It is used to determine the time of religious and ceremonial events and for divination. Each successive day is numbered from 1 up to 13 and then starting again at 1. Separately from this, each day is given a name in sequence from a list of 20 day names:

**Tzolk'in calendar: named days and associated glyphs**
Seq. N^o. ¹	Day Name ²	16th C. Yucatec ⁴	reconstructed Classic Maya ⁵	Seq. N^o. ¹	Day Name ²	16th C. Yucatec ⁴	reconstructed Classic Maya ⁵
01	Imix'	Imix	Imix (?) / Ha' (?)	11	Chuwen	Chuen	(unknown)
02	Ik'	Ik	Ik'	12	Eb'	Eb	(unknown)
03	Ak'b'al	Akbal	Ak'b'al (?)	13	B'en	Ben	(unknown)
04	K'an	Kan	K'an (?)	14	Ix	Ix	Hix (?)
05	Chikchan	Chicchan	(unknown)	15	Men	Men	(unknown)
06	Kimi	Cimi	Cham (?)	16	K'ib'	Cib	(unknown)
07	Manik'	Manik	Manich' (?)	17	Kab'an	Caban	Chab' (?)
08	Lamat	Lamat	Ek' (?)	18	Etz'nab'	Etznab	(unknown)
09	Muluk	Muluc	(unknown)	19	Kawak	Cauac	(unknown)
10	Ok	Oc	(unknown)	20	Ajaw	Ahau	Ajaw
NOTES: The sequence number of the named day in the Tzolk'in calendar Day name, in the standardised and revised orthography of the Guatemalan Academia de Lenguas Mayas^[2] An example glyph (logogram) for the named day. Note that for most of these several different forms are recorded; the ones shown here are typical of carved monumental inscriptions (these are "cartouche" versions) Day name, as recorded from 16th century Yukatek Maya accounts, principally Diego de Landa; this orthography has (until recently) been widely used In most cases, the actual day name as spoken in the time of the Classic Period (c. 200–900) when most inscriptions were made is not known. The versions given here (in Classic Maya, the main language of the inscriptions) are reconstructed based on phonological evidence, if available; a '?' symbol indicates the reconstruction is tentative.^[8]

Some systems started the count with 1 Imix', followed by 2 Ik', 3 Ak'b'al, etc. up to 13 B'en. The trecena day numbers then start again at 1 while the named-day sequence continues onwards, so the next days in the sequence are 1 Ix, 2 Men, 3 K'ib', 4 Kab'an, 5 Etz'nab', 6 Kawak, and 7 Ajaw. With all twenty named days used, these now began to repeat the cycle while the number sequence continues, so the next day after 7 Ajaw is 8 Imix'. The repetition of these interlocking 13- and 20-day cycles therefore takes 260 days to complete (that is, for every possible combination of number/named day to occur once).

Divination

Each day of the Tzolk'in has a Patron Spirit who influences events. Ah K'in, the Mayan shaman-priest, whose title means "Day Keeper", read the Tzolk'in to determine the answers to yes/no questions as well as more complex questions involving health, wealth and family. The Sacred Calendar is also used to set the most auspicious dates for household, lineage, and community rituals.
When a child is born, the day keeper interprets the Tzolk'in cycle to identify the baby’s character (similarly done today with a natal chart). For example, a child born on the day of Ak'b'al is thought to be feminine, wealthy, and verbally skillful. The birthday of Ak'b'al (along with several other days) is also thought to give the child the ability to receive messages with the supernatural world through somatic twitches of "blood lightning", so he or she might become a Shaman-priest or a Marriage Spokesman.
There are several forms of Maya Calendar divination employing the sacred coral seeds which each Calendar diviner carries in a small bag with crystals and 'other small things' (Tozzer 1941).
The Precolumbian Maya practiced a form of Bibliomancy, in which they would cast the seeds upon a calendar to determine the good and bad days for the year.
Precolumbian Maya employed and Modern Maya Ah K'in employ Sortilage, in which piles of four or five beans are counted from the current calendar day of the Sacred Round to arrive at the result.
Modern Maya Ah K'in also employ Cartomancy, in which the fifty two cards of the poker deck represent the fifty two Year Bearers of the Maya Calendar Round.
Maya shamans also perform a wide variety of divinatory arts which do not specifically depend upon a mastery of the sacred calendar, including crystal, mirror and water gazing and spirit possession, among others.

Origin of the Tzolk'in

The exact origin of the Tzolk'in is not known, but there are several theories. One theory is that the calendar came from mathematical operations based on the numbers thirteen and twenty, which were important numbers to the Maya. The numbers multiplied together equal 260. Another theory is that the 260-day period came from the length of human pregnancy. This is close to the average number of days between the first missed menstrual period and birth, unlike Naegele's rule which is 40 weeks (280 days) between the last menstrual period and birth. It is postulated that midwives originally developed the calendar to predict babies' expected birth dates.
A third theory comes from understanding of astronomy, geography and paleontology. The mesoamerican calendar probably originated with the Olmecs, and a settlement existed at Izapa, in southeast Chiapas Mexico, before 1200 BCE. There, at a latitude of about 15° N, the Sun passes through zenith twice a year, and there are 260 days between zenithal passages, and gnomons (used generally for observing the path of the Sun and in particular zenithal passages), were found at this and other sites. The sacred almanac may well have been set in motion on August 13, 1359 BCE, in Izapa. Vincent H. Malmström, a geographer who suggested this location and date, outlines his reasons^[9]:

(1) Astronomically, it lay at the only latitude in North America where a 260-day interval (the length of the "strange" sacred almanac used throughout the region in pre-Columbian times) can be measured between vertical sun positions -- an interval which happens to begin on the 13th of August -- the day the peoples of the Mesoamerica believed that the present world was created; (2) Historically, it was the only site at this latitude which was old enough to have been the cradle of the sacred almanac, which at that time (1973) was thought to date to the 4th or 5th centuries B.C.; and (3) Geographically, it was the only site along the required parallel of latitude that lay in a tropical lowland ecological niche where such creatures as alligators, monkeys, and iguanas were native -- all of which were used as day-names in the sacred almanac.

Malmström also offers strong arguments against both of the former explanations.

Haab'

The Haab' was the Maya solar calendar made up of eighteen months of twenty days each plus a period of five days ("nameless days") at the end of the year known as Wayeb' (or Uayeb in 16th C. orthography). Bricker (1982) estimates that the Haab' was first used around 550 BCE with the starting point of the winter solstice.
The Haab' month names are known today by their corresponding names in colonial-era Yukatek Maya, as transcribed by 16th century sources (in particular, Diego de Landa and books such as the Chilam Balam of Chumayel). Phonemic analyses of Haab' glyph names in pre-Columbian Maya inscriptions have demonstrated that the names for these twenty-day periods varied considerably from region to region and from period to period, reflecting differences in the base language(s) and usage in the Classic and Postclassic eras predating their recording by Spanish sources.^[10]
In sequence, these Haab' month names (in modern and revised orthography of their Yukatek forms)^[11] are as follows:

**Haab' Months**
Name	Meaning^†
Pop	mat
Wo	black conjunction
Sip	red conjunction
Sotz'	bat
Sek	?
Xul	dog
Yaxk'in	new sun
Mol	water
Ch'en	black storm
Yax	green storm
Sac	white storm
Keh	red storm
Mak	enclosed
K'ank'in	yellow sun
Muwan	owl
Pax	planting time
K'ayab'	turtle
Kumk'u	granary
Wayeb'	five unlucky days
^† Jones 1984

Each day in the Haab' calendar was identified by a day number within the month followed by the name of the month. Day numbers began with a glyph translated as the "seating of" a named month, which is usually regarded as day 0 of that month, although a minority treat it as day 20 of the month preceding the named month. In the latter case, the seating of Pop is day 5 of Wayeb'. For the majority, the first day of the year was 0 Pop (the seating of Pop). This was followed by 1 Pop, 2 Pop ... 19 Pop, 0 Wo, 1 Wo and so on.
As a calendar for keeping track of the seasons, the Haab' was crude and inaccurate, since it treated the year as having 365 days, and ignored the extra quarter day (approximately) in the actual tropical year. This meant that the seasons moved with respect to the calendar year by a quarter day each year, so that the calendar months named after particular seasons no longer corresponded to these seasons after a few centuries. The Haab' is equivalent to the wandering 365-day year of the ancient Egyptians. Some argue that the Maya knew about and compensated for the quarter day error, even though their calendar did not include anything comparable to a leap year, a method first implemented by the Romans.

Wayeb'

The five nameless days at the end of the calendar called Wayeb' were thought to be a dangerous time. Foster (2002) writes "During Wayeb, portals between the mortal realm and the Underworld dissolved. No boundaries prevented the ill-intending deities from causing disasters." To ward off these evil spirits, the Maya had customs and rituals they practiced during Wayeb'. For example, people avoided leaving their houses or washing or combing their hair.

Calendar Round

Neither the Tzolk'in nor the Haab' system numbered the years. The combination of a Tzolk'in date and a Haab' date was enough to identify a date to most people's satisfaction, as such a combination did not occur again for another 52 years, above general life expectancy.
Because the two calendars were based on 260 days and 365 days respectively, the whole cycle would repeat itself every 52 Haab' years exactly. This period was known as a Calendar Round. The end of the Calendar Round was a period of unrest and bad luck among the Maya, as they waited in expectation to see if the gods would grant them another cycle of 52 years.

Long Count

Detail showing three columns of glyphs from 2nd century CE La Mojarra Stela 1. The left column gives a Long Count date of 8.5.16.9.9, or 156 CE. The two right columns are glyphs from the Epi-Olmec script.

Since Calendar Round dates can only distinguish within 18,980 days, equivalent to around 52 solar years, the cycle repeats roughly once each lifetime, and thus, a more refined method of dating was needed if history was to be recorded accurately. To measure dates, therefore, over periods longer than 52 years, Mesoamericans devised the Long Count calendar.
The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from August 11, 3114 BCE. But instead of using a base-10 scheme like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40. The Long Count is not consistently base-20, however, since the second digit (from the right) only counts to 17 before resetting to zero. Thus 0.0.1.0.0 does not represent 400 days, but rather only 360 days.
The Mayan name for a day was k'in. Twenty of these k'ins are known as a winal or uinal. Eighteen winals make one tun. Twenty tuns are known as a k'atun. Twenty k'atuns make a b'ak'tun.

**Table of Long Count units**
Days	Long Count period	Long Count period	Approx solar years
1	= 1 K'in
20	= 20 K'in	= 1 Winal	1/18th
360	= 18 Winal	= 1 Tun	1
7,200	= 20 Tun	= 1 K'atun	20
144,000	= 20 K'atun	= 1 B'ak'tun	395

There are also four rarely-used higher-order cycles: piktun, kalabtun, k'inchiltun, and alautun.
Since the Long Count dates are unambiguous, the Long Count was particularly well suited to use on monuments. The monumental inscriptions would not only include the 5 digits of the Long Count, but would also include the two tzolk'in characters followed by the two haab' characters.
The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar forms the basis for a New Age belief, first forecast by José Arguelles, that a cataclysm will take place on or about 21 December 2012.^[12]

Venus Cycle

Another important calendar for the Maya was the Venus cycle. The Maya were skilled astronomers, and could calculate the Venus cycle with extreme accuracy. There are six pages in the Dresden Codex (one of the Maya codices) devoted to the accurate calculation of the location of Venus. The Maya were able to achieve such accuracy by careful observation over many years. The Venus cycle was especially important because the Maya believed it was associated with war and used it to divine good times (called electional astrology) for coronations and war. Maya rulers planned for wars to begin when Venus rose. The Maya also possibly tracked other planets’ movements, including those of Mars, Mercury, and Jupiter.

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How to Survive - Bunker Construction

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:49:00 +0000

Bunker Construction

Soft Iron

Used to protect electrical items or entire bunkers from electro-magnetic radiation. Make sure electrical items are disconnected from the socket and turned off.
Wrap a sheet of soft iron around the object requiring shielding, and the magnetic field lines which would have closed through the interior are diverted and close through the shield instead. Therefore any magnetic field that existed in the interior is greatly weakened.

Soft Iron is used to form shielding for components, instruments, and in some instances to even protect people from electromagnetic radiation. Even a single sheet placed between the protected object and the source/direction of the radiation will greatly reduce the effect.
Lead shields protect from ionizing radiation sources such as Gamma and Beta types but only Mumetal can work effectively on the lower non ionizing frequencies , like those created by electromagnetic storms. One might protect a computer by building a Faraday cage, but even better is a lead-lined Mumetal box to slip the computer into in times of high electromagnetic radiation.
Soft metals in use include mu-metal, supermalloy, supermumetal, nilomag, sanbold, Molybdenum Permalloy, Ultraperm, M-1040, etc.

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How to Survive - Emergency Kit ( Short Term )

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:48:00 +0000

Emergency Kit (short term)

Basics

Water
Food
Battery-powered or hand crank radio (extra batteries for both)
Flashlight (extra batteries)
First aid kit
Whistle to signal for help
Dust mask (to help filter contaminated air)
Plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter-in-place
Moist towelettes, garbage bags and plastic ties for personal sanitation
Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities
Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food)
Local maps
Prescription medications and glasses
Infant formula and diapers
Pet food and extra water for your pet
Important family documents such as copies of insurance policies, identification and bank account records in a waterproof, portable container
Cash or traveler's checks and change
Emergency reference material such as a first aid book or information from www.ready.gov
Sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person. Consider additional bedding if you live in a cold-weather climate.
Complete change of clothing including a long sleeved shirt, long pants and sturdy shoes. Consider additional clothing if you live in a cold-weather climate.( BDU's will be prefered)
Household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper – When diluted nine parts water to one part bleach, bleach can be used as a disinfectant. Or in an emergency, you can use it to treat water by using 16 drops of regular household liquid bleach per gallon of water. Do not use scented, color safe or bleaches with added cleaners.
Fire Extinguisher
Matches in a waterproof container
Feminine supplies and personal hygiene items
Mess kits, paper cups, plates and plastic utensils, paper towels
Paper and pencil
Books, games, puzzles or other activities for children
Every weapons for protection ( Pistols, Rifles, shotguns and extra ammo)
Rope
Utilities Knife
Gas Mask
chemical protection suit

Specifics=

Actual emergency supplies often depends on a specific predicted events. Assuming Nostradamus to be correct, he predicted a sudden flooding as a most likely cause as well as solar flares. Therefore a specific emergencies, the most important ones are, which also cover tsunami events, and pole shifts:

life preserver
inflatable rubber rafts
rope
radio communication
clothing to protect extreme heat and cold
canned food
portable water filter
iodine or chlorine to kill water bacteria
hiding in caves protect against gamma radiation

A supervolcano event, uses very different emergency supplies:

oxygen breathing apparatus
gas mask or masks
shovel
plenty of water
radio communication

Water

You should have at least a three-day supply of water and you should store at least one gallon of water per person per day. A normally active person needs at least one-half gallon of water daily just for drinking.

Food

Store at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food.
Select foods that require no refrigeration, preparation or cooking and little or no water.
Pack a manual can opener and eating utensils.
Avoid salty foods, as they will make you thirsty.
Ready-to-eat canned meats, fruits and vegetables
Protein or fruit bars
Dry cereal or granola
Peanut butter
Dried fruit
Nuts
Crackers
Canned juices
Non-perishable pasteurized milk
High energy foods
Vitamins
Food for infants
Comfort/stress foods

There's pdf's to download also: FEMA - http://www.fema.gov/plan/prepare/basickit.shtm Homeland Security - http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/index.html
Fun Survival Fact: If you choose to use your own storage containers, choose two-liter plastic soft drink bottles – not plastic jugs or cardboard containers that have had milk or fruit juice in them. Milk protein and fruit sugars cannot be adequately removed from these containers and provide an environment for bacterial growth when water is stored in them. Cardboard containers also leak easily and are not designed for long-term storage of liquids. Also, do not use glass containers, because they can break and are heavy.

How to Survive - Protective Headgear

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:45:00 +0000

Tinfoil Hats and EM radiation

There will be many forms of electromagnetic fields which could cause brain tissue damage following 2012. Top scientists have issued recommendations that all people should outfit themselves with a hat as shown in the picture to "improve survivability by 20%".

A tin foil hat can significantly reduce the intensity of incident RF radiation on the wearer's brain. A well constructed tin foil enclosure would approximate a Faraday cage, reducing the amount of very harmful radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation inside the skull. A common high school physics demonstration involves placing an AM radio on tin foil, and then covering the radio with a metal bucket. This leads to a noticeable reduction in signal strength. The efficiency of such an enclosure in blocking such radiation depends on the thickness of the tin foil, as dictated by the skin depth, the distance the radiation can propagate in a particular non-ideal conductor. For half-millimeter-thick tin foil, radiation above about 20 kHz (i.e., including both AM and FM bands) would be partially blocked.

An example of protective headgear which should be used.

Tinfoil Hats and Mind Control

This picture was leaked from a highly-classified government research program into mind control.

Owing to the large stockpiles of nuclear weaponry on the planet today, it is highly likely that there will be great amounts of nuclear fallout following 2012. Mutations will be highly likely among the poplance of the planet, and among the list of possible mutations there lies, at the top of that list, mutants with psychic and mind control abilities. Unprotected persons would be forced to act at the mutant's whim, effectively becoming mindless automatons in servitude to their master.

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Answers From NASA

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:10:00 +0000

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 a 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.

"There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there..."
- Don Yeomans, NASA senior research scientist 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-shift 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.

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.

Addition information concerning 2012 is available on the Web, at:

NASA Astrobiology Institute: "Nibiru and Doomsday 2012"
Bad Astronomy: "The Planet X Saga: The Scientific Arguments in a Nutshell"
Sky and Telescope Magazine: "2012: The Great Scare"

Article from NASA

Downloads - Images

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:19:00 +0000

2012 - Image 1

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Click on the image->Right Click ->Save image as -> save

2012 - Image 2

2012 - Image 3

2012 - Image 4

2012 - Image 5

2012 - Image 6

Dark Comet in 2012?

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:28:00 +0000

Dark Comet in 2012?

When beggars die there are no comets seen. The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
Shakespeare
Julius Caesar

When considering what might cause us grief in 2012, few if any researchers consider the start of the Mayan Long Count calendar to have any importance. This is surprising, because the reason for the calendar beginning on August 11 3114BC might contain clues about 2012 itself. After all, the Mayan culture did not exist 5,000 years ago, so either they randomly chose an ancient date on a whim, or an earlier civilization was behind the calendar, and they knew something important occurred on that date.

What could happen in 3114BC, and also in 2012AD? No civilization has lasted that long, so they are unlikely to be man-made events. Any natural events that occur so infrequently on Earth are virtually impossible to predict (volcanic eruptions for example). So that leaves us with astronomical events. The astrology of the pair of dates has been well studied, so we can rule out alignments of the stars and planets. That leaves the Sun, which we barely understand today, and comets. Is there a comet with a periodicy of 5000 years, due to return in 2012? Without any evidence from 3114BC it is impossible to say. Given that we are now near the end of the Mayan 5th age, could their calendar be designed to cover five orbits of a comet? And end catastrophically in 2012?

Most people have not heard of Comet Caesar (it doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry), and hopefully this will remain so. However, if we are to suffer a terrible tragedy in 2012, it is currently my leading candidate, and the purpose of this article is to explain why.

Comet Caesar

Comet Caesar was the most famous comet of its day, and one of the brightest ever witnessed. It was visible during an annual Roman festival held in 44BC, shortly after Julius Caesar's death. The following quotes are from The Greatest Comets in History: Broom Stars and Celestial Scimitars by David Seargent:

This was the comet that blazed in the skies of Rome following the assassination of Julius Caesar and which became immortalized by the Romans on the reverse of a coin bearing a portrait of Augustus struck in honor of the great Julius.

...According to Pliny, Octavian wrote that "On the very days of my games, a comet was visible over the course of seven days, in the northern region of the heavens. It rose at about the eleventh hour of the day and was bright and plainly seen from all lands".

...In the fourth century of our era, Servius presented an account that had the comet visible for 3 days and visible at midday and during the daytime.

Comet Caesar is a parabolic comet - a comet that returns less frequently than every 200 years. Most parabolic comets have orbits significantly longer than 200 years, and very few have ever been observed to make a complete orbit.[1] Astronomers expect 50 percent of parabolic comets will receive gravitational nudges that cause them to never orbit the Sun again. Those that remain in orbit should be slowed with each passage, eventually becoming intermediate or short-period comets.[2] Therefore we either never see them again, or they take so long to return that we don't know which, if any, have historical records they match up with.

In my search for the most likely 2012 culprit, I have constantly asked myself, could the ancients have predicted this? Asteroids and comets are definitely predictable in a broad sense, and all that it takes is observation and mathematics. Such calculations are not easy. They require recalculating the orbit for every day of every year, according to where the object is then located, and how the planets are affecting its course. If ancient astronomers had considered the period of a comet or asteroid to be fixed, rather than varying due to the gravitational influences of planets, then there may have been inaccuracies in any 2012 prediction they made. However the daily recalculations were certainly not impossible in ancient times.

Predictability of Comets

Perhaps the most famous comet, even today, is Halley's Comet. Edmond Halley - as well as a team of French mathematicians - predicted the return of this comet, not just from knowing the dates of its past visits, but by calculating the gravitational effects of planets like Saturn and Jupiter. They did this by hand.

A single line in the Talmud suggests that 1st century Jewish astronomers were also aware of the periodicy of Halley's Comet:

"a star which appears once in seventy years that makes the captains of the ships err".

To go from calculating the return of a comet, to having knowledge that it will probably strike Earth, is a major leap. Although that is not to say they weren't merely predicting the return of a spectacular comet, let's investigate the possibility that an ancient culture was capable of predicting the actual impact of a comet in 2012.

First of all, for this hypothesis to have any validity, the comet must be a long period one; that is, it must pass our planet less frequently than once every 200 years. More frequent comets would be well known by modern astronomers, and would most likely have their future orbits determined.

According to Wikipedia, there are just 40 known comets with a periodicy greater than 200 years (or non-periodic comets). Of these, 38 have been observed since 1577AD. The only prior dates were 1106AD and 44BC. To me this suggests that a great many earlier observations would have been made, we just don't have evidence of such. The Great Comet of 1106AD was seen from Europe to Japan. A Welsh text said of it:

In that year there was seen a star wonderful to behold, throwing out behind it a beam of light of the thickness of a pillar in size and of exceeding brightness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X/1106_C1

Were we to have detailed records of comets from more historical times, we might have a similar description with which we could determine the periodicy of the 1106 comet. Without this, we have nothing to base its return on - could be tomorrow, could be never. [3]

You could say the same about Comet Caesar, the aforementioned earliest recorded comet of 44BC. Without another record of it, we cannot determine when it will return next. While there may not be any surviving record of a prior passage, perhaps we can make an implication from the Long Count calendar. If the end of the calendar is actually the date a comet will strike Earth, what is the most logical reason for the start date?
If, and this is obviously pure speculation, it had been observed in 3114BC, and again in 44BC, could it be returning once again in 2012? With a precise periodicy of 1025.2 years we get the following sequence of dates:

3114BC - start of the Long Count calendar
2089BC - 2104/2105 is when the Great Flood occurred according to the Hebrew Calendar
1064BC - 1077 was the end of the Egyptian New Kingdom, marking the beginning of Egypt's decline
39BC - Comet Caesar was witnessed in 44BC
987AD - Dark Ages
2012AD - end of the Long Count calendar

Is 39BC close enough to 44BC? In 1758 the French astronomers who calculated the return of Halley's Comet determined that the gravitational effects of Saturn and Jupiter would make a difference of 618 days to its existing orbit, or almost 2 years. Is a difference of 5 years within 5 orbits outside the realms of possibility?

Variable Periodicy of Comets

When Comet Hyakutake was discovered in 1996, astronomers determined that on the way in to our solar system it had an estimated periodicy of 17,000 years, yet after having its orbit disturbed by the largest planets, its new course meant it would take between 72,000 and 114,000 years to return.

When 23P/Brorsen-Metcalf was first discovered it was closest to Earth in August 1847. After completing its orbit it was back in that approximate spot in October 1919, and again in August 1989. The two observed periods were 72 years and 70 years. That's roughly a 3% deviation between 2 orbits.
The periodicy of a comet can vary from a little, to a lot, to so much we never see it again. It is entirely possible that Comet Caesar was seen the very same years as the Great Flood, the end of the Eygptian New Kingdom, the start of the Long Count calender - and will return in 2012.

Where are the records?

…they were either not observed or were observed and recovered by illiterate, uneducated peasants. It was quite unthinkable that the sophisticated urban theologian of A.D. 1000… should take seriously the allegations of such rabble that stones fell from the sky.

…Modern astronomers seeking accounts of ancient astronomical events …find the records of medieval Europe sparse at best.[4]

To explain the absence of records for Comet Caesar prior to 44BC is easy – lost in the annals of history that never made it. But what of 987AD? Could it really go from observed in 44BC, to not observed at all? Or has the record from 987AD +/-3 years, just disappeared?

The former possibility is covered by the concept of dark comets, described below. To answer the latter possibility, 987 was in the Dark Ages, renowned for a lack of records. In fact so lacking that some researchers have speculated that the era never existed at all!

Halley's Comet was observed in 837 according to records from Japan, China, and Germany. The next observation was in 912, and was recorded in the Annals of Ulster, like this: "A dark and rainy year. A comet appeared”. There is no specific record of its return in 990, and was next spotted in 1066, where it was recorded as having an influence on the Battle of Hastings.

The only mention of a comet circa 987AD (when I approximately hypothesize Comet Caesar would have returned) is indirect, and attributed to Eilmer of Malmesbury, a Benedictine monk:

You've come, have you? - You've come, you source of tears to many mothers. It is long since I saw you; but as I see you now you are much more terrible, for I see you brandishing the downfall of my country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilmer_of_Malmesbury

He described this appearance in 1066. Because the previous passage of Halley's Comet would have been in 990AD, and he was an “old man” in 1066, it is believed that he could have seen the comet when he was 5 years old, and have would been 76 years old in 1066 when he was quoted. But what if he was just a few years older in 1066, and was actually recalling a comet he witnessed in 987AD? Could he have seen the most recent passing of Comet Caesar, and not Halley's Comet, in the closing years of the tenth century?

Taking a different angle, if there is no specific record of Halley's Comet in 990AD, it fits that a return of Comet Caesar circa 987AD also avoided any record that survives to this day.
For some, a simple lack of record will suffice, and the hypothesis is feasible. For the others, I will describe a mechanism from which the comet rapidly loses visibility.

Dark Comets

There's only one difference between dark comets and regular comets - we won't see the approach of the dark comet.

In early 2009 many news articles reported the findings of British astronomers Bill Napier (Cardiff University) and David Asher (Armagh Observatory), and reading them sent a shiver down my spine, prompting me to research the possibilities further.

"There is a case to be made that dark, dormant comets are a significant but largely unseen hazard," says Napier.

…periodic comet showers appear to correlate with the dates of ancient impact craters found on Earth, which would suggest that most impactors in the past were comets, not asteroids.
Now Napier and Asher warn that some of these comets may still be zipping around the solar system. Other observations support their case. The rate that bright comets enter the solar system implies there should be around 3000 of them buzzing around, and yet only 25 are known.[5]

Until now it was commonly accepted that more than 90% of meteors and comets that could cause us harm were known and tracked by astronomers and government agencies. That thousands of comets that are potentially heading straight for us are not known or tracked is rather frightening. How can a comet become dark?

The science is actually quite easy to understand. Comets start out with ice on their surface. Every time they orbit around the Sun, the heat melts some ice. Eventually there is no ice left. And the only way we can easily see comets is from light reflecting off the ice.

In 1983, Comet IRAS-Araki-Alcock passed by Earth at a distance of 5 million kilometres, the closest known pass by any known comet for 200 years. It was spotted only two weeks ahead of its closest approach. "It had only 1 per cent of its surface active," says Napier. Comet Borrelly, visited by NASA's Deep Space 1 probe in 2001, was found to have extremely dark patches over much of its surface.[6]

Clark Chapman, from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, is not so concerned, saying that the dark comets 'would absorb sunlight very well' and therefore should be possible to detect from the heat they would emit. I'm not qualified to judge this statement, but from a layman's point of view, I would think a handheld mirror reflecting the sun's light from a mile away is far more easily seen than a slab of rock that is so hot you could fry an egg on it.
Here are a couple of examples of lost comets. One of the reasons they are no longer observed could be that they have lost their luminosity.

18D/Perrine-Mrkos - seen in 1896 and 1909, then 1955, then 1969, and not since.
5D/Brorsen - first spotted in 1846, last seen in 1879. With an orbital period of 5.5 years. Has been as close as 0.52 AU to Earth, and as far as 1.5AU. Japanese astronomers hoped to spot it in 1976, but failed.

The orbital period of 5D/Brorsen suggests it could be passing by in 2012, if it is still on course. There is even a possible case of a dark comet harming us (in a roundabout way) in recent times. Paul Wiegert of the University of Western Ontario has determined that the dark comet D/1895 Q1 (Swift) collided with NASA's Mariner 4 Mars probe in 1967. Given that the comet was only ever observed in 1895/1896, there is not enough data to be absolutely certain, but something took out the probe, and a dark comet is the leading candidate.

Many lost comets could be coming close to Earth in 2012, but without recent observations, there is no way of accurately calculating their passage.
A long period comet would be the best candidate for a 2012 culprit for two reasons:

an ancient civilization may have tracked comets for much longer than our present civilization, giving them a great advantage in determining the periodicy of long period comets
a longer period that adds up to a 2012 rendezvous is more statistically reliable than that of a short period comet. Every passage increases the chance of permutations due to encounters with the gravity of planets it may pass. A comet that has orbited 4 times in the last 2000 years is more likely to still be on course that one that has orbited unseen 50 times in the last 200 years.

Summary

Even without the possible return of Comet Caesar, dark comets are the leading contender for triggering a predictable 2012 cataclysm. Comets were known to the ancients - we have many ancient texts providing us with descriptive names like "fire from the sky" - and their cyclical nature makes it easy for any civilization with mathematical prowess to predict. Thousands of hypothetical dark comets remain undiscovered in modern times, and if we do find one on a collision course with our planet, we may only have a few years, or even a few days, to prepare. And those times will be times of mass panic.

Notes

1. Steel, Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets, 25. The longest observed orbital period for a comet is 153P/Ikeya-Zhang with 341 years, having been discovered in 1661, and again in 2002.

2. Gribbin, Fire on Earth, 103

3. Of course there is the possibility that the Great Comet of 1106AD and the 44BC comet are one and the same. If that were true, it could be expected to return circa 2250AD.

4. Lewis, Rain of Fire and Ice, 17

5. Parsons, “'Dark' comets may pose threat to Earth.”

6. Ibid.

Article From survive2012.com

The real doomsday?

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:16:00 +0000

Here is a common belief that the calendar holds a prophecy that the world will end in 2012. I knew very little about the whole topic when I began doing the research. I like to think I had an open mind. My investigation began with mainstream archaeology and expert interpretations of the calendar. But it soon took a turn that made my hair literally stand on end. I am now convinced that these prophecies are true.

To understand what is likely to happen to Earth and its people, you will need to remain calm and try to follow the facts. It's not as simple as some people describe. It requires an understanding of some fairly complicated science, but I think I can explain this in a way that you will easily understand.

The Calendar -- A Descrption

First, the Mayan calendar is also sometimes called the Aztec Calendar. This calendar is recorded as a carving on the Aztec "sun stone," currently on exhibit in the National Museum of Anthropology and History located within Chapultepec Park, Mexico City. There's a lot we could say about this carved stone but most of those details are irrelevant to the "end times."

Our modern calendar, called the Gregorian Calendar, has days, weeks, months and years. In the Mayan Calendar it's more complex. In fact, it's really three calendars at the same time.

First there's a religious calendar that takes 260 days to complete a full religious cycle. There are 20 "weeks" made up of 13 days. Each week has a special name, a graphic logo and unique meaning associated with it. This reminds me of the Chinese years which cycle through "the year of the rat" and "the year of the monkey," etc., each with it's special image and meaning.

Graphic logos for each of the 20 religious weeks.

Next there is the solar calendar. This has 365 days, like our modern calendar. It's divided in 18 months of 20 days each. At the end of the cycle there's five special days considered to be unlucky because they don't belong to any month. Each of the months has a special name, graphic logo and some special significance, similar to the icons for the weeks in the religious calendar.

So it is possible, for any specific date, the calculate the religious week and the solar month and to predict the influences that might be guiding fate. But that's not really what's involved with the prophecy of 2012. To understand that we must look at the third calendar, called the long count.

While the first two cycles could be thought of as cogs or gears (see below) revolving through time, the long count is a linear number of days, starting from the first day, "1," and counting through each day to the present. Any day in history can be recorded using the long count and, with some simple mathematics, the corresponding religious week and solar month can also be found.

In writing this article, I thought about creating a javascript program that would do this calculation. My friend, Gene Matlock, then told me that when he was in Mexico, he found a place that sold wooden, mechanical calculators with gears that did just that. He said that Mexicans sometimes used these mechanical calendars to foretell the future or to find auspicious times for special events like marriage or births. Anyway, although it might be nice to know the religious and solar significance, it's the long count that foretells Doomsday.

Cog or "gears" can be used to compute the religious and solar cycles for any date.

The days of the long count are numbered with an unusual system. Instead of writing numbers as we do, from right to left with each place being a multiple of 10 (i.e. 10000, 1000, 100, 10, 1), the Mayans had only 5 places.

The first place recorded a number from 0 to 20. To the left, the second place could have a range from 0 to 17; the third from 0 to 19; the fourth from 0 to 19 and the last from 0 to 12. The numbers were written from right to left, like our system, separated by a dot. Instead of multiples of 10, the first place had a multiple of 1 (like our system); the second place a multiple of 20; the third a multiple of 360; the fourth a multiple of 7200 and the fifth a multiple of 144000.

So a long count number, for example, could be written as 4.12.5.9.0 and would be calculated as follows:

(4 x 144000) + (12 x 7200) + (5 x 360) + (9 x 20) + (0 x 1) or a long count of 664,380.

It's not too difficult to realize that the maximum number which can be recorded this way would be 12.19.19.17.20, although some researchers like to write it as 13.0.0.0.0. This amounts to a long count number of 1,872,000 days or 5125.36 years of our modern calculations. Obviously, the calendar is very old!

Over the years, archaeologists have found carved monuments that recorded the long count for known dates in Mayan history. Once a date was fixed in time, it was easy to determine "day 1" as August 11th, 3114 BC. And it was also easy to calculate the date at which the calendar would end -- December 21st, 2012.

Trust me, just because the calendar ends doesn't prove that time, or the world, or life will end. We need to look carefully at December 21, 2012 and try to understand why the Mayans never calculated a date beyond this point in time. To do this we must move from Archaeology to the science of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

It's all about the Sun

It's ironic (or maybe not) that the Mayan Calendar is often called the "sun stone." While the calendar does have "solar" days, acknowledging the 365 days it takes for Earth to rotate around the Sun, it is also true that the Sun plays a key role in the final day of the "long count." To understand what will happen to the Sun on December 21, 2012, we need to review some scientific terms like "ecliptic," "barycenter," and "sunspots." These are important in the discussion that follows. We'll start with the most difficult one first.

Terms we will encounter...
What is the Barycenter?
You've no doubt heard that Earth revolves around the sun. Well, actually, that's not quite true!
Have you heard the term "center of gravity"? It's a technical-sounding term for something pretty simple. It's the exact center of all the material (that is, mass) that makes up the object. For example, if you have a straight stick, like a ruler or yardstick, there's a place at the middle where you can balance it on your finger. That's its center of gravity.

But the center of gravity may or may not be the point that is exactly in the middle, distance-wise, of the object. Some parts of the object may be heavier (denser) than others. If you have something like a sledge hammer that is heavier on one end than the other, the center of gravity will be much closer to the heavy end than the lighter end.

To get an idea of where the center of gravity is, rest the ends of any object like the ruler or a pencil on one finger from each hand. Slowly move your fingers together without dropping the object. Your fingers will meet underneath the object's center of gravity. You can balance the object on one finger at that special place.
The actual center of gravity could be close to the surface or deep inside, depending on whether the object is flat like a ruler or a dinner plate, or "three-dimensional," like a box or a ball. And if you let the object spin (like when you throw it), it will try to spin about that point.
In the case of the Earth and the sun, both bodies actually revolve, or spin, around the very center of the mass (similar to center of gravity) between them. This point is called the "barycenter." Earth and the sun are "connected" by the gravity pulling them together. It's just like the light end and heavy end of the sledge hammer. Compared to the size of the sun, Earth is about like a flea on a cat! So the center of mass between the Earth and the sun is almost--but not quite--the very center of the sun.
In the case of a planet the size of Jupiter, which is 318 times as massive as Earth, the barycenter of Jupiter and the sun is a bit further from the sun's center. So, as Jupiter revolves around the sun, the sun itself is actually revolving around this slightly off-center point, located just outside its center. Thus, a planet the size of Jupiter will make the sun (or any star) appear to wobble a tiny bit. This picture shows you that the center of mass and barycenter can be slightly different points. It isn't meant to be very accurate!

We can take advantage of this bit of knowledge and look for large planets in other solar systems by learning to detect this type of tiny wobble in the star's position.

For now, let's forget all the small planets and focus on Jupiter. It makes one complete trip around the Sun every 11.861773 years. There's a new theory put forth by Dr. Rollin Gillespie which shows that Jupiter, and to a smaller degree the other less massive planets, may trigger the 11 year cycle of sunspots and solar flares.

Here's how it works.

The barycenter is not a single point in the Sun. Because the Sun is a rotating gaseous sphere, the barycenter forms a vertical, cylindrical "sleeve" that is partially inside and outside the main solar body. All of the planets have such a "sleeve," one inside the other, depending on their relative mass and the location of their barycenters. The particular sleeve representing the mass of Jupiter intersects the solar surface at 35.9 degrees North and South. This is precisely where sunspot and flare activity begin and end during each 11 year cycle.

The new cycle has already begun with the recent observation of a solar spot with reverse polarity. But some surprising activity on March 27, 2008, showed some huge eruptions with M-class radiation at about the equatorial region of the Sun. [ See Solar Map]. These surprising eruptions suggests a barycenter of disturbance from an object even more massive than Jupiter, placing the "sleeve" outside the Sun. Could this be the beginning of the Galaxy's effects (keep reading to learn more about this) on our Sun?

Scientists have noted that when Jupiter and Saturn are aligned on the same side of the Sun, the solar maximum (the period when we have the most sunspots and flares) is at its weakest; when they are on opposite sides of the Sun the solar maximum is at its strongest. The positions of these two planets on December 21, 2012 are ideal for extreme solar activity.

Above: Position of Jupiter and Saturn on 12/21/2012.

These cylinders are usually quite orderly because the planets adhere to a narrow plane, called the ecliptic which resembles a thin plate extending from the equator of the Sun. The planets hang out here because (in simple terms) this is the zone where the gravitation of the system is the strongest. (see below)

The planets orbit the Sun in a narrow plane called the ecliptic.

But nature is never perfect. The Sun rotates at a slight angle (7.25 degrees), much as our Earth does. As it wobbles, it tilts the sleeves, causing them to clash with eachother and eventually disrupt the surface. Having the barycenters of the to most massive planets, Jupiter and Saturn, in maximum misalignment is especially disruptive. This disturbance, to put it simply, works its way to the surface and erupts in sun spots and solar flares or CME's (Coronal Mass Ejections).

The last solar cycle was at its maximum in 2001. Each active solar cycle has a period when the flares are strongest, usually happening near the solar equator, called the "solar maximum." This is significant because the next "solar maximum" event will coincide with December 21, 2012. But wait -- there's much more!

Solar flares are pieces of the sun which leap into space, discharging radiation and strong electrical currents that travel outward into space. They often fall back to the surface of the Sun. Sometimes, a very strong flare, called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), actually leaves the Sun and this deadly mass shoots out from the Sun towards the planets like a bullet. Usually these CME's don't hit anything but occasionally they hit a planet like Earth. Some believe a powerful CME once hit Mars.

Most solar flares are small. But even a small flare can be dangerous. In 1989 a flare hit the North American continent and fried electric lines, zapped power grids in the US and Canada, and created large power backouts. Flares can also effect our moods and physical health. In theory, a large flare impacting the Earth could zap the ionosphere (there goes all the satellites, cellphones, GPS...) and irradiate the surface, killing every living organism that it touched.

Solar flares and sun spots have an average cycle of 11.120412 years (estimated from one "solar maximum" to the next). Right now, 2009, we are just entering the active period of cycle number 24, after an unusually long period of quiet solar activity. This quiet period led some people at NASA to conclude that cycle 24 would be a very quiet cycle -- contradicting the earlier predictions they made for an extremely violent cycle. Now they have redacted their call for a quiet cycle since the activity has again commenced. The scientists who study the Sun have also recently announced that they have measured the solar currents, deep inside the Sun, which correspond the Dr. Gillespie's barycenter currents. But to date they have not been able to agree what causes these deep currents of solar material.

The small discrepancy between the average 11.120412 year solar cycle and the 11.861773 year period of Jupiter is close enough to be significant but suggests that something else is also influencing solar disturbances. Sure, it could be attributed to the various positions of the other less massive planets, but it could also be something even more significant -- the Milky Way.

The Galactic Alignment of December 21, 2012

The Perfect Storm

Our solar system is part of a huge disc shaped collection of stars and planets called the Milky Way. We're located somewhere on the edge of the disc, slightly on top of the narrow disc. But very soon we'll be moving to the bottom of the disc. This change, from top to bottom, begins on December 21, 2012.

Yes, that's right. On the same day when our Sun is at it's solar maximum, something will happen that's never happened for thousands of eons of time -- the ecliptic of our solar system will intersect with the Galactic plane, called the "Galactic Equator" of the Milky Way! [see star chart].

If you imagine our solar system as a bunch of peas on a plate, with a huge meatball in the center, imagine the Milky Way as a city-size pizza with the "Guiness World Book Record Meatball" in its center!

Prior to December 2012 we have been drifting on the top of the pizza, never really able to see the bottom. The plate and pizza are not parallel. They are moving at different angles. We've been drifting down, down, down... and on December 21st, 2012, we will be exactly level with the crust -- forming an "x" at the Galactic Equator where galactic gravity is the strongest. After 2012, if we are still here, we will be passing through the bottom zone, viewing the Milky Way pizza from the South.

Yes, there's even more!

By some amazing coincidence, not only will we be intersecting with the Galactic Equator, but we will be doing this precisely aligned with the center of the Galaxy where there is maximum mass! More mass means more gravity. More gravity means more influence from those barycenters in our Sun. That means exponential increases in solar disruptions -- all coinciding on the same day! Whew!

[Above: The Hercules Cluster of galaxies. This group of galaxies is held together by the gravitational attraction or "pull" of each individual galaxy on the others in the group. This demonstrates the enormous gravity contained in a galaxy, such as our own Milky Way.]

What is that pole shift ?

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:04:00 +0000

Here’s what people selling books about the end of the world and stuff don’t want you to know. Too much misinformation is going around so that people can cash in!

Pole shift is a rare phenomenon and characterized by the north and the south poles swapping places. Such reversals, recorded in the magnetism of ancient rocks, are unpredictable. They come at irregular intervals averaging about 300,000 years; the last one was 780,000 years ago. There is some sort of hype around pole shift since the fear propaganda has started about the end of the world in 2012 (see my post about 2012).

Pole shift is a process that roughly takes 5,000 years to complete and doesn’t start on a specific date and time and the real truth is that nobody knows when the next one is due. So let’s put an end right now to that 2012 thing before we go any further.

If you came here to know if a pole shift would end our world in 2012, well no.

That being said, to really understand what a pole shift is, we have to take a look at the inner core of our planet. The magnetic field of our planet comes from this inner core, which is mainly a solid ball of iron 70% as wide as the moon and as hot as the sun. It doesn’t spin at the same rate as the earth; it has it’s own rate.

What creates the magnetic field is the convection of molten iron, within the outer liquid core and also with the overall planetary rotation. The creation of the magnetic field can be explained with the dynamo effect: When conducting fluid flows across an existing magnetic field, electric currents are induced, which in turn creates another one. When this new field reinforces the original, a dynamo is created which sustains itself. It’s a little more complicated than that and you can do your own research on magnetic fields and dynamo if you want to have more details about it.

There’s a popular belief that wants a pole shift to completely remove the earth’s magnetic field during it’s reversal. It would then expose the earth to space radiation and solar storms. Well, once again, this ain’t true and here’s why from a NASA article:

They’ve also learned what happens during a reversal. Reversals take a few thousand years to complete, and during that time–contrary to popular belief–the magnetic field does not vanish. “It just gets more complicated,” says Glatzmaier. Magnetic lines of force near Earth’s surface become twisted and tangled, and magnetic poles pop up in unaccustomed places. A south magnetic pole might emerge over Africa, for instance, or a north pole over Tahiti. Weird. But it’s still a planetary magnetic field, and it still protects us from space radiation and solar storms.

To summarize everything, pole shift have happened before and will happen again. We just don’t know when the next one will occur. Like some say, we might be overdue because the last one was 780,000 years ago, but here’s the way I see it:

They come at irregular intervals averaging about 300,000 years and it has now been 780,000 years since the last one. Then we’ve been due for 480,000 years! Where I’m getting at is that your parents generation was also overdue, your grandparents generation was overdue and since the start of civilization on this earth it was overdue. Even the Mayas were overdue. What I’m trying to say is that it could’ve happened way before that and that it can happen tomorrow or in 100,000 years so don’t worry too much about it. Again, the process takes 5,000 years to complete so I bet you won’t notice it too much.

Here’s all the popular beliefs and why it’s not true:

A pole reversal will happen in 2012. False, it will happen but we don’t know when yet. I’m pretty sure the NASA would be able to confirm if it was even a 2012 possibility.
A pole reversal would decrease the strength of our magnetic field to near zero. False, it would still be there and as strong as it is now, just more complicated.
A pole reversal would have terrible impact on our planet. True, but the process takes 5,000 years to complete. It doesn’t happen just like that when you wake up one morning.
We’re overdue for a pole shift. Maybe, but we’ve been overdue for the past 380,000 years. Our little 2,000 years of history is pretty small in that. Do you believe we don’t know when it’s going to happen?

I hope this article is putting light on the subject because I think it’s an important matter: too much false information is going around about the end of the world in 2012 and pole shift so that people can cash in.

Update: Read What is that pole shift thing part II for answers on the physical pole shift due to the Earth’s crust moving.

images are taken from NASA website.

Article by Ben Tremblay

Why it shouldn’t be feared ?

noreply@blogger.com (Pavithra) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:07:00 +0000

2012 is a business

Before you read this article, here is a video I recently recorded about 2012 and how people build businesses around it to make money. While a lot of people say that you can’t trust NASA or the government because they would certainly hide this 2012 stuff from us, I say there are a lot of people who want to spread this because they make money out of it. So, in the end, who do we trust? Watch it, I think that explains it all, but still, read the article and all the comments for more information.

What is 2012 about?

The year 2012 is referring to the last year of the Long Count Maya calendar. The current Great Cycle, as the Mayas call it, is set to end on the winter solstice of 2012: December 21 2012 and many people believe that on that date, the world will change and never be the same. Some predict terrible events resulting in the destruction of our world and some predict that it won’t necessarily end, but that we will enter a new era and massive changes will occur.

This article will try to answer most questions you may have in a rational way. because there are way too many websites creating some sort of fear propaganda around 2012 and as you will see, you have nothing to be scared of.

There’s too much disinformation going on about this subject and there’s an article you can read that was published around 1990 that reminds me the current situation:

* 1990’s End of World

What will happen on December 21 2012?

Quick answer: Nobody knows, but probably not much.

There have been a lot going on regarding the 2012 prophecy recently, including the movie “I am legend”, but surprisingly, not much information about what is really supposed to happen on that date is available. This is Probably because nobody knows and also because probably not much will happen. Most information available about 2012 is making reference to mass destruction of the world as we know it, earth’s pole shift/magnetic field reversal, Nostradamus predictions, end of Mayas calendar, etc.

The base of all the predictions is the end of the Maya calendar in 2012, which is supposed to mean the end of the world or a period of radical changes. In fact, the end of the Maya calendar is known as the end of the Great Cycle. People find it easy to believe in that theory because Maya civilization is known for advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy. It can seem like they really know what they’re talking about, but the truth is that the end of the Great Cycle is not the end of the world, it’s in fact a great celebration for the Mayas:

For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle” says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”

From USA Today

On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years(Milky Way is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. The Galaxy has special significance to humanity as it is the home galaxy of the planet Earth). This special alignment means that the usual energy that typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 2012 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time. Scientists are actually in great doubt about the fact that the Mayas even knew what they were talking about.

Astronomers generally agree that “it would be impossible the Maya themselves would have known that” says Susan Milbrath, a Maya archaeoastronomer and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. What’s more, she says, “we have no record or knowledge that they would think the world would come to an end at that point.”

From USA Today

Putting apart scientific data, here are the commons beliefs of the December 21 2012:

* Galactic Alignment. This Galactic Alignment occurs only once every 26,000, this is considered as the end-date in the Mayans Long Count calender. It is the alignment of the December solstice sun with the Galactic equator.
* A comet hitting Earth (Nostradamus)
o Read my article on Nostradamus to discover the real truth about Nostradamus: Nostradamus is not a valid argument!
* Earth’s Pole Shift/Magnetic field reversal
o Read my article on pole shift to discover the real truth about 2012 and pole shift: What is that pole shift thing and What is that pole shift thing part II
* Increase of calamities, natural disasters, mass destruction, etc.

I don’t want to repeat myself, but all of this is very vague as nobody really knows what will happen and the world is not at its first doomsday prophecy. There have been a lot of “Unfulfilled” prophecies in the past and you can have a look at this Wikipedia document for a list of unfulfilled religious prophecies.

What I find quite interesting about the 2012 theory is that there’s not much publications from well respected scientific organizations. NASA has published a couple of articles about the pole shift, but nothing else that could reveal a certain fear of the end of the world. Now you could argue that “big organizations” certainly wouldn’t reveal anything that has to do with the end of the world, but that’s another debate.
2012 conspiracy theory

I mentioned in the “What will happen” section that there’s a lack of scientific information coming from well respected sources like NASA. Some people claim there’s a conspiracy theory behind the prophecy to hide it from the public so it doesn’t create mass panic. Now, this does and doesn’t make sense. At first, it sounds like it could be true because I totally agree the government could restrain publications from the NASA as it’s a governmental agency, but I find it weird that this kind of information wouldn’t “leak”.

Do you really think something as big as the end of the world wouldn’t leak from any agency? Keep the NASA apart, do you really think the scientific community would miss something as big as that? When there’s no scientific data about a subject, you really have to doubt.

You’ve probably read a lot of information on websites from people claiming they know more than they should know and that the government is hiding all this information from you. Government is hiding a lot of things from you, more than you probably imagine and they would probably try to hide the end of the world if it was going to happen. But, let’s picture this: The Mayas were there 1000 years before Christ which makes it about 3000 years from now. Do you think someone could hide the end of the world for 3000 years if it was really going to happen and was really that possible and scientific?

I have my doubts.
Pole shift/reversal, the only 2012 end of the world possibility

The only rational “2012 End of world” possibility is actually pole shifting. A Pole shift is a rare phenomenon and is characterized by the north and the south poles swapping places. Such reversals, recorded in the magnetism of ancient rocks, are unpredictable. They come at irregular intervals averaging about 300,000 years; the last one was 780,000 years ago. I wrote an article on pole shift that explains the whole process, have a look: What is that pole shift thing?

Such event could really disrupt our planet that’s true. Imagine the North pole and South pole swapping places: Telecommunications, animals, humans, etc. would all be affected and it would be a really important change. There’s only one thing you need to consider… I’ve read in a lot of different places that a polar shift is going to happen on December 21 2012 and it is totally false:
Polar shift is a process that roughly takes 5,000 years to complete and doesn’t start on a specific date and time. The real truth is that nobody knows when the next one is due.

The process takes time and another myth wants the earth’s magnetic field strength to be near zero during that transition time. It would actually be as strong as it is now but simply a lot more complicated. Once again, it is explained in my What is that pole shift thing? article.
Will I die on December 21 2012?

I can’t tell, the Mayas can’t, Nostradamus can’t and the aliens can’t. On December 21 2012, a comet won’t hit the earth, a pole shift won’t happen instantly and a massive gravity burst won’t happen either. The only thing you can fear is a pole shift and it can take up to 5,000 years to complete…

What if you’re wrong?

In the case that I am wrong, that every scientist on this planet is wrong and that the NASA can’t figure out a simple galactic alignment that would put our world to an end then I guess we are all in the same situation. You, me and everyone will die. Scary isn’t it? Well, no one can tell what will happen tomorrow or in 2012.

Article by - Benoit Tremblay

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