Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many
Internet websites say the world will end in December
2012.
Answer (A):The world will not end 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 and 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: Is NASA predicting a "total blackout" of Earth on Dec. 23 to
Dec. 25?
A: Absolutely not. Neither NASA nor
any other scientific organization is predicting such a blackout.
The false reports on this issue claim that some sort of "alignment
of the Universe" will cause a blackout. There is no such alignment
(see next question). Some versions of this rumor cite an emergency
preparedness message from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. This
is simply a message encouraging people to be prepared for
emergencies, recorded as part of a wider government preparedness
campaign. It never mentions a blackout.
›Watch the Video
Q: Could planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments
in the next few decades and even if these alignments were to occur,
their effects on the Earth would be negligible. One major alignment
occurred in 1962, for example, and two others happened during 1982
and 2000. 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.
› More about alignment
"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-switch to fool people. They claim a relationship between
the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change
irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000
years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal
doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. Scientists believe a
magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few
millennia.
› More about polar shift
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 Near-Earth Object 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 the world ending in
2012?
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.
› Why you need not fear a supernova
› About super volcanoes
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.
› Video: Solar Storms
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html
