Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012?
Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer (A): Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012.
Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and
credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.
Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will
end in 2012?
A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed
planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe
was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday
date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to
the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter
solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.
Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does
not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to
exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period
but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another
long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.
Q: Could phenomena occur where planets align in a way that
impacts Earth?
A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few
decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these
alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each
December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way
Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
"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. A
magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.
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.
