How long until we are sure?

Tim S

2009-06-15 07:58:55 UTC

UFO Attack, apparently the Mayans were in constant contact with them.

-> Evidence please? what are your sources? There is no evidence for contact with sentient beings from another world so far.

Gamma Ray Burst

-> Don't know enough to say anything valid about this.

Solar Flares the same as 100 million atomic bombs

-> Highly unlikely. If I'm not mistaken this has happened before, in 2001. Not much went wrong then.

Polar Shift

Planet X crashing into earth

-> There is no "planet X". It was a hypothetical planet used in some astronomers' calculations, but because of recent developments the concept of any "planet X" has become redundant.

Comet or Asteroids hitting the earth

-> That's always possible, but it won't happen tomorrow. No worries.

Us being thrown into a black hole

-> Extremely unlikely. Did you know the center of the milky way is a black hole? That's why we orbit it, like how sattellites orbit the Earth.

If there was a black hole closer to us that that, we'd already be gone.

Magnetic fields will collapse

-> Now what could cause that? I see no reason why it would. The North pole may become the South pole and vice versa, but the field won't collapse.

Don't put too much faith in doomsday stories. One day Earth's time will come, but that's a long time from now.

DLM

2009-06-15 09:58:45 UTC

Hi David M! (Nice name, btw).

We ARE sure the world will NOT end in 2012, there is no need to wait. First of all, stop watching the History Channel (how did I know that you were watching that?) as it is absolute rubbish. The sell lies, and, interestingly enough, use the testimony of "authors" who use psychadelic drugs rather than research to come to their pitiful conclusions. I'm sorry, but I never passed a science class by not learning the material and just taking LSD instead. But for whatever reason, these boneheads get their fifteen minutes of fame by telling people publically that they are all going to die in three years.

The Mayans were not in contact with aliens, there is zero evidence of aliens visiting the Earth EVER, and even less than that in the archaelogical record. Please research your incredulous claims before you post them.

Gamma Ray Burst. I actually recommend reading Phil Plait's "Death From the Skies." It is a well written and well researched book on the probabilities of many of these events.

Solar flares = Not applicable. You probably mean Coronal Mass Ejections, even the worst of these only caused a short term power outage in Quebec back in the late 1980's, the projected solar maximum for this cycle is anticipated for May-June of 2013, and is expected to be lower than average.

Planet X crashing into Earth = 0% chance. Fictional objects do not crash into real ones.

Comet or Asteroid impact = very low. It would have to be a currently unduscovered object. Which means if it were an asteroid, it would have to be small. The largest one that could be an NEO and be undetected as of today, would be roughly the size of the one associated with the Tunguska event in the early 1900's. No worldwide devastation there, although some localized devastation occurred.

Black Hole = 0% There are no black holes within 3 light years, and black holes still obey the laws of physics, meaning none can travel faster than the speed of light, meaning none will hit Earth in 2012.

Magnetic Fields "collapse" = I'm not sure what this even means. Our outer core has been spinning since the Earth formed, since there is no outside force to stop this motion, the magnetic field cannot "collapse" ever. It can reverse magnetic orientation, but that is a different aspect and takes incredibly long periods of time to occur.

There are several Top Contributors in this forum that have been contributing on the site listed in my sources, a necessity, considering the sheer volume of 2012 quesitons that appear in Astronomy and Space. It's still being fine tuned, but check it out, I think you will find it easy to navigate, and every page has a well researched bibliography at the bottom, should you feel the need to fact check.

Raymond

2009-06-15 07:57:13 UTC

"How long until we are sure?

that the world will not end in 2012 or will we have to wait to that exact date? I don't no if i can stand the wait."

We already know that the world will not end in 2012. The Big 2012 Hoax was invented by the same people who had invented Planet X for their prediction of the end-of-the-world of June 2003 (planet passing close to Earth, causing tsunami and pole flips, hiding the Sun...).

-----

"What is the chances do you think of the following:

UFO Attack, apparently the Mayans were in constant contact with them."

Mayans were not in contact with aliens. See below, at Planet X.

"Gamma Ray Burst"

It could happen, the last one that affected Earth was (apparently) a few billion years ago. They are not predictable -- at least, not to the point where we can tell in which century the next one will be.

"Solar Flares the same as 100 million atomic bombs."

That is from the movie "Knowing". The next solar maximum (there is one every 11 years) will be in 2013 and is expected to be weaker than usual. The comparison with "100 million atomic bombs" is there to scare people who love to be scared.

"Polar Shift"

If you are talking about a real shift (spin reversal) then these things take billions of years (the one on Venus was "fast": it only took 4 billion years).

If you are talking about magnetic reversal, we get them on average every 750,000 years. They happen whenever the dipole field moment gets below 4 units of intensity. 40,000 years ago (at the end of the last magnetic excursion) it reset itself at 10 units (some say 11) and it has slowly been decreasing ever since -- that is the normal behavior. It is now around 7 units and it should reach 4 units around the year 3500.

"Planet X crashing into earth"

No. Planet X does not exist. It was invented by charlatans for the end-of-the-world of June 2003 (they were selling books on how to survive the passage of Planet X). The same charlatans who invented the Big 2012 Hoax.

These charlatans who claimed to be in contact with aliens from a planet around the star Zeta Reticuli (where we know there are no planets).

"Comet or Asteroids hitting the earth."

Comets and asteroids (small ones) hit Earth all the time. It is the big ones we have to worry about, and these are a lot rarer. Here is the list:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/

The next one we worry about is "scheduled" to pass close to Earth in 2048. It still has a 99.966% chance of missing us.

"Us being thrown into a black hole"

None.

The Black Hole Scare was popularized by the same charlatans who had launched the Big 2012 Hoax. It belongs to a family of "predictions" based -- if we can use that word loosely -- on the passage of the winter solstice position, on the ecliptic, to the other side of the Galactic equator (a recently created reference system, independent of the Sun and Earth).

"Magnetic fields will collapse"

Already described above. The Earth's magnetic field has a dipole component and a non-dipole component. The varying one (that resets at 10, then slowly decreases to 4) is the dipole component. The other component does not vary.

The field itself (the total of the two components) does not "collapse", unless you are willing to call a 40,000 year decline a collapse. If that is the case, then the field is constantly collapsing (except during the thousands of years it takes to reset itself at a value of 10).

anonymous

2009-06-15 18:53:14 UTC

Depends how sure you want to be! We can already give you better than thousand-to-one odds against any naturally occurring apocalypse in that year. An artificial apocaypse is far harder to rule out, but we will become gradually more sure as the date approaches, assuming nothing happens during that time to make a nuclear war/GE superdisease/nanomachine outbreak/whatever any more likely than it would appear right now.

>UFO Attack, apparently the Mayans were in constant contact with them.

About one to a billion against. And no the mayans were not in contact with aliens.

>Gamma Ray Burst

About one to a billion against, assuming you mean one sufficiently close to cause extensive damage here on Earth.

>Solar Flares the same as 100 million atomic bombs

Pretty even chances. However these happen all the time and do not cause serious damage to us. The most they do is maybe knock out a couple of communications satellites.

>Polar Shift

Better than one to a trillion against. Magnetic pole shifts simply do not happen over timespans as small as a single year, much less a single day.

>Planet X crashing into earth

Better than one to a trillion against. We know of no such planet in existence, and furthermore the Earth has not been struck by another planet for literally billions of years. This is extremely improbable.

>Comet or Asteroids hitting the earth

Somewhere around one to several million against, assuming you mean one sufficiently large to cause extensive damage here on Earth.

>Us being thrown into a black hole

Better than one to a trillion against. At normal speeds, if such a black hole was close enough, we would have detected it already. There is no good reason to think that an extremely fast black hole will just happen to collide with the Earth in 2012.

>Magnetic fields will collapse

Better than one to a trillion against. Planetary magnetic fields don't just 'collapse' in the space of a single year, any more than they shift around over the same kind of timespans. We have no good reason to think anything like this even COULD happen.

Note that all these probabilities are for the chances of the given event occurring anywhere in the year 2012, not on any specific day.

anonymous

2009-06-15 08:13:05 UTC

We were sure during the 1960s. The whole 2012 thing was invented by two men named Michael Coe and José Arguelles who invented the 2012 myth and wrote about it in a couple of books (Coe in 66 and Arguelles in 75).

This is a 100% manufactured myth created in order to sell books and to make money off of New Agers.

The easy way to tell that this is a fake myth is that is relies on a misconception of the Maya calender. According to Coe and Arguelles' books the Maya calendar will end in 2012. However what they don't tell you is 1) That the calendar will also restart in 2012 (it just cycles through, there is no actual end, only a restarting) 2) That this happened in the 17th century with no consequence to the world 3) That everything else that they tell you is complete rubbish.

1) The Maya weren't in contact with UFO. This was invented by a mad Swiss man called Eric von Daniken. He invented this myth to make money. He used the proceed form his book to build a museum that shows cave men hunting dinosaurs (who lived millions of years apart and who never actually co-existed), and which claims that the ancient Egyptians invented the light bulb (see, completely mad).

2) Where from? At the speed that Gamma rays travel we'd see it coming hundreds of years in advance.

3) That kind of stuff happens several times a year. At most it just causes a couple of neighborhoods to black out in Canada and Alaska.

4) We'd get maybe 1-2 hundred years notice

5) Planet X orbits outside of Pluto. It's orbit brings it nowhere near Earth. We'd also get maybe 1-2 hundred years notice because we'd see it coming.

6) Possible, but statistically unlikely.

7) Which black hole would that be. We'd need to travel for decades at the speed of light just to come close to one.

8) We already know that it's happening, and that it will take over 1500 years, after which point it may well just get stronger again. It's not a 2012 event.

Logan

2009-06-15 09:35:00 UTC

We ARE sure! All of that stuff is bull-pies!

Planet X does not exist. There is no evidence. The idea is made up by non-scientists with extremely questionable credentials.

Magnetic fields will not collapse!

The Mayans were not in contact with aliens!

Asteroids and gamma ray bursts could hit us, but the probability that we will be hit at any one instant is EXTREMELY low!!!!!

I know you probably heard this stuff from the History Channel or some wonky website, but these beliefs are asinine. They are not just false, they are laughably false. I do not mean to insult you but am only stating that these far-fetched ideas are so beyond the pale that they are not worth your time and you should not worry about them.

eri

2009-06-15 07:55:01 UTC

We are right now absolutely sure nothing like that will happen.

1. UFO attack? No, the Mayans were not communicating with aliens. There's just so much wrong there it's hard to know where to start.

2. GRB? Nope. The only way one could possibly effect us is if it went off in our own galaxy (never observed) and was pointed right at us (extremely small chance).

3. These happen all the time. Ever noticed? Nope.

4. Those take thousands of years, not over night.

5. There is no planet X.

6. There are no nearby black holes and no reason to think they'd ever come close enough.

7. That doesn't even make sense. Like most of these.

Bullseye

2009-06-15 09:31:44 UTC

There are now over 30,000 Search results for 2012 on YAHOO ANSWERS! Please do a search before asking this question again. We have already answered your question numerous times!

These 2012 questions are more like FAITH and SUPERSTITION than science! Do you really believe that the 30,000+ amateur astronomers in the USA, and the hundreds of professional astronomers would have just MISSED this! For example, no where on the internet are the sky coordinates of Planet X given. Just try to find them-------- you will not find them anywhere. This PLANET X is a complete HOAX!--- and does not exist anywhere in the sky. You just cannot throw out a doomsday scenario without any proof or observational data.

AND--------- 2012 web site always site third party sources that then site NASA --- never do they site NASA directly with a link--- just read the sources they are never DIRECT NASA sources.

If you can give me the coordinates I will find this so-called planet X with the computer GOTO scope shown in my signature photo-- or in the 16 inch GOTO scope that our Astronomy club owns. However you will not find the coordinates on any internet web site.

No other near Earth objects are on a collision course with Earth right now or in the foreseeable future................ and aliens with death ray guns are NOT on the way--- and a pole shift will occur in maybe another 10,000 years--- and no black hole is nearby to swallow the Earth or somehow (against all of Keplers planetary motion laws) move it off it's orbit...... and by the way.........

Mars will NOT be as large as the moon later this year! This is another internet Hoax!

Every web site promoting the 2012 hoax is doing so for either FUN or MONEY! (although I don't think it's very funny to scare kids or the uneducated). So please forget about this 2012 stuff---

The 2012 HOAX is just a fictional story...................that happens to be on the internet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJjQMwEjC...

Watch this famous astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson DEBUNK the 2012 internet hoax

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astr...

and read this scientist at NASA's Q&A on Nibiru--- Planet X

Or these links --

http://www.dailycommonsense.com/2012-gal...

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/pla...

http://www.podfeed.net/episode/The+2012+... NOVA 2012 Podcast "Neil DeGrasse Tyson"

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astr... NASA

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astr... NASA

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astr... NASA

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astr... NASA

NASA Links 2012--- there are many more on the NASA web site

Gary B

2009-06-15 07:56:36 UTC

I'm sure now.

These stories about 2012 being the end of the world were written to frighten little children, or the scientifically ignorant.

Which are you?

anonymous

2009-06-15 22:18:32 UTC

Destruction in 2012, God, Satan and Aliens are just a theory, as yet unproven.

Dr A

anonymous

2009-06-15 08:04:08 UTC

we are already absolutely sure that this is all utter nonsense.

to pick one: where is planet x? if it was going to be in our vicinity in 2012 it would be a naked-eye object now. why hasn't anybody seen it? i reiterate my offer of $10,000 for confirmed coordinates.

anonymous

2009-06-15 08:01:56 UTC

I'm going to put my vote in for the earth to burn, for no conceivable reason, five miles deep down into the crust.

alfajoe127

2009-06-15 09:29:48 UTC

dude, can you give me all the money in your bank account in 2012 since you'll die anyways?