Will the world come to an end on December 21, 2012?

Lionel Wijesiri

At mid-night on December 31, 2011, the Gregorian calendar flipped from the year 2011 to 2012. The celebration most likely just involved tons of alcohol and fireworks and was the start of a New Year for our calendar. Nothing more! Nothing less!

But it was also the beginning of a much hyped year. Rather than being the year of the US Presidential election or the London Olympics, this year has been hijacked by a small group of people who seem hell-bent on insisting that, by the end of the year, some kind of devastating scenario will play out. These are the people who predict - with an unbelievable degree of accuracy - that on December 21, 2012 will herald a rare stellar explosion. According to them, on this day, the world will 'come to an end'.

This doomsday scenario is doing big rounds. US Space Agency NASA is also getting concerned with thousands of messages from individuals who are worried about their lives. In a public space service announcement by NASA recently, Francis Reddy, of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Centre, went on the record to say: “...astronomers can say with certainty that there is no threatening star close enough to hurt Earth.”

Origin

How did this '2012 phenomenon' originate? It was initiated by the Mayans who lived in Central America (in the geographical locations of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras) between AD. 250 and 900.

Archaeologists studying this fascinating culture have been able to decipher their many calendars, but their longest period calendar, known as the 'Long Count', is what set alarm bells ringing. The Long Count calendar was created by the Mayans so that history could be chronicled and future events could be planned - not too dissimilar to the calendar on our computer, smartphone or iPhone.

It just so happens that this 'Long Count' calendar will end with its 13th 'Baktun' on December 21, 2012. (A baktun in the ancient Mayan Long Count Calendar contains 144,000 days, which is equal to 394.26 tropical years). In short, this long-period calendar has a total cycle of 5,126 years. This is a departure from the other calendars the Mayans used at the time. Some calendars lasted less than a year, others lasted decades. Then, using remarkable ingenuity, the Mayans created the Long Count calendar that had a numerical foundation - almost like an ancient binary code.

Long Count Calendar

The start date of the Long Count Calendar was significant for the ancient Mayan people, because this was the date on which they believed the world was born - or at least the world that we presently live in. Certainly this date marked what they believed was the end of a previous world and the beginning of the current one. The question is, why does the long count start in 3,114 BC? Some archeologists believe evidence suggests that something very significant may have occurred around this time, which affected the whole world on a global scale, and this may have prompted the Mayans to set the start of their long count calendar as they did.

These archeologists believe that an explanation of why the Mayan long count calendar began its countdown in 3,114 BC could be given by climate records. One proponent of the theory that something big and important happened to the Earth's climate 5,200 years ago is Professor, Lonnie Thompson.

He is an American paleo-climatologist and Distinguished University Professor in the School of Earth Sciences at The Ohio State University. He has achieved global recognition for his drilling and analysis of ice cores from mountain glaciers and ice caps.

Thompson and his team have studied glacial ice all over the world. In researching issues relating to our current climate change problem, they have uncovered evidence that points to very significant climate change 5,200 years ago. Plants preserved in the ice Peruvian mountains, the preserved body of a man found in the Alps in 1991, tree ring records in the British Isles, changes in the Saharan landscape from lush pastures to barren desert, low-level methane levels in ice core sample from both polar regions - all point to the same conclusion; a significant reduction in solar energy reaching the Earth, causing a period much colder climate conditions.

Professor Thompson also warns that such changes could occur again, and that human interference with the Earth's natural climatic cycles could upset the balance, with devastating consequences.

Marketing fallacy?

Although the exact end-date of this Long Count cycle has recently been thrown into doubt, one thing most Mayan culture experts and doomsday theorists agree on is that the calendar 'ends' in December 2012. One thing they don't agree on, however, is what this actually means.

Doomsayers will try to convince you that the 'end' of the Long Count 13th Baktun is a Mayan prophesy of the 'End of the World.'

But, according to someone who actually knows a great deal about the Mayan culture, the Mayans never made any such prophesy: “We have to be clear about this. There is no prophecy for 2012,” said Erik Velasquez, an etchings specialist at the National University of Mexico.

The National Institute of Anthropological History in Mexico recently issued a statement: “The West's messianic thinking has distorted the world view of ancient civilizations like the Mayans.” According to the Institute, of the 15,000 glyphic texts found in the ancient ruins of the Mayan empire, only two mention 2012. Events after 2012 are also mentioned, so this 'End of the World' isn't as definite as the doomsayers make out.

Planet X

Some proponents of doomsday in 2012 claim that a planet called Nibiru, will collide with or pass by Earth in December this year.

The Nibiru collision is a supposed disastrous encounter between the Earth and a large planetary object (either a collision or a near-miss) which certain groups believe will take place in December 2012. However, this idea is not supported by any scientific evidence and has been rejected as pseudoscience by astronomers and planetary scientists. Astronomers have calculated that such an object so close to Earth would by now be visible to anyone looking up at the night sky, if not for NASA telescopes.

Galactic alignment

Galactic alignment is when the sun is in position between the earth and the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. Our solar system is part of that galaxy. A group of doomsday proponents believe that the galactic alignment due to happen at the end of 2012 is going to bring all kinds of natural and even cosmic disasters on earth. They believe that when the sun and earth become aligned with the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, this will bring about the end of the world because it will somehow create an extra gravitational pull on Earth.

Credible scientists’ reply is straight forward. Earth is not within range of strong gravitational effects from the black hole at the centre of the galaxy since gravitational effects decrease exponentially the farther away one gets. The earth is 150 million km away from the sun and 260 quadrillion km away from the black hole in the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. Because the earth is so far away from the galaxy's black hole, when the sun moves between the earth and the centre of the galaxy it is such a small movement compared to such a great distance.

Now because the sun itself is aligned with the dark rift, this annual creates no changes in gravitational pull, no solar radiation, no change in planetary orbits, no polar shift or anything else that would negatively impact life on Earth.

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, December 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know.

It will, however, be another winter solstice, when the sun is at its southernmost point. Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than four billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012 and foreseeable years beyond.