2012 is a US$200-million production about the end of the world supposedly based on myths backed by the Mayan calendar. Credit: Sony Pictures
WASHINGTON DC: The world is not coming to an end on December 21, 2012, NASA insists in a rare campaign to dispel widespread rumours fuelled by the Internet and a new blockbuster movie.
The latest big screen offering from Sony Pictures, 2012, opens in Australia today. It is a US$200-million production about the end of the world supposedly based on myths backed by the Mayan calendar.
The doomsday scenario revolves around claims that the end of time will come as an obscure Planet X – or Nibiru – heads toward or collides with Earth.
Doomsday scenario
The mysterious planet was supposedly discovered by the Sumerians, according to claims by pseudo-scientists, paranormal activity enthusiasts and Internet theorists. Some websites accuse NASA of concealing the truth on the wayward planet’s existence, but the U.S. space agency denounced such stories as an “Internet hoax.”
“There is no factual basis for these claims,” NASA said in a question-and-answer posting on its website. If such a collision were real “astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye,” it added. “Obviously, it does not exist.”
“Credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012,” it insisted. After all, “our planet has been getting along just fine for more than four billion years.”
Dwarf planet
There is a similar celestial body, Eris, floating in space. But the dwarf planet, similar to Pluto, will remain safely lodged in the outer Solar System and it can come no closer than 6.4 billion kilometres to Earth, according to NASA.
Scores of Internet postings and books delve into the supposed disaster, including Apocalypse 2012 and How to Survive 2012. Initial theories set the disaster for May 2003, but when nothing happened the date was moved forward to the winter solstice in 2012 to coincide with the end of a cycle of the ancient Mayan calendar.
NASA insisted the Mayan calendar in fact does not end on December 21, 2012, as another period begins immediately afterward. And it said there are no planetary alignments on the horizon for the next few decades. And even if the planets were to line up as some have forecast, the effect on our planet would be “negligible,” it said.
Among the other theories NASA has set out to debunk are that geomagnetic storms, a pole reversal or instability in the Earth’s crustal plates might soon befall the planet.
For example, some myths claim the Earth’s rotation and magnetic polarity are linked. A magnetic reversal does take place about every 400,000 years, but “as far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth,” said NASA, and is highly unlikely to occur in the next few millenia. A reversal in Earth’s rotation is “impossible,” it added.
And while comets and asteroids have always hit the Earth, big hits are very rare. The last very major impact was believed to be 65 million years ago, causing a mass extinction that led to the demise of the dinosaurs. “We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs,” the space agency said.
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2012 trailer – Sony Pictures
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There is nothing NASA has to say about this subject that matters one iota! Probably has more to do with a badly needed radical change in conciousness rather than disaster scenarios anyway. But there is some science behind some Earth changes as well and it has nothing to do with NASA. So what can they debunk?
They are debunking the theory that a planet is going to crash into Earth, by the sounds of the article…
Seems like it, yes.
NASA getes it’s pay check from the government that needs us to stay calm and pay our taxes, so they can spend monye we don’t have and build underground bunkers for the presadant and the rest of the coruped polititions. I don’t think the world will come to an end, but the S*^* will hit the fan.
The correlation of a planet hitting the earth as stated in the film 2012 is false. Clearly, the writer of this article hasn’t seen the film. For 2012 is actually about a large solar flare that bombards earth with neutrinos, which create a reaction in the centre of the earth heating up the temperature of the core causing tectonic plate movement. BTW, neutrinos would not cause such a reaction in any case but it’s Hollywood after all.
This is sensationalist writing and just designed to cash in on the tailcoat of the film’s hype.
Read between the lines… the Mayan calendar issue, is a separate on and as far as the full alignment or complete occultation goes, there doesn’t seem to be any coming up soon.
What I found when viewing the end of the world is that it was soapy!
The movie was great for two things; entertainment and one simple and good message; we are all children of the earth; we shouldn’t be divided as we are.
I don’t think the intent of the director was to create panic; this film didn’t contribute to the doomsday-mongers at all.
Ultimately, there is no “end of the world”- humans will evolve along with all of the other creatures. Even if we disappeared from this world, life will continue elsewhere. It is always a cycle.
Nature will choose what is best, as always.
If anything does happen to us, it will be our own fault; widespread pollution, war and epic destruction will kill this planet well before anything else will.
The movie was great for two things; entertainment and one simple and good message; we are all children of the earth; we shouldn’t be divided as we are.
I don’t think the intent of the director was to create panic; this film didn’t contribute to the doomsday-mongers at all.
Ultimately, there is no “end of the world”- humans will evolve along with all of the other creatures. Even if we disappeared from this world, life will continue elsewhere. It is always a cycle.
Nature will choose what is best, as always.
Humans have no power over what will happen in the future.
I agree that there have been some major changes on the Earth, but the movie certainly did not pick a scenario that is likely to happen,from what is known by real Geophysics, or astrophysics. The Sun could get unstable just before it inflates……5 billion years from now. All known planets in our area of space are very far away from us, and heating and cooling occurs on the Earth periodicaly, whether or not man is here to experience it. So on December 21st, just get up as usual, let out a couple of farts and enjoy your morning coffee…Decemeber 22 will arrive and you will still have tax bills and flatulence…Peace.
As I have done regarding many other doomsday myths and scares in the past, I assure everybody to the extent that I can that the year 2012 will come and go with the Earth and its terrestrial life, overall, still intact as much as they have been since the last global extinction of terrestrial life on Earth many millions of years ago. Doomsday myths and legends have issued without any validity from scriptures, prophets, oracles, seers, fortune tellers, psychics and like unintelligent and untalented superstition-source, con and prankster aspirants for influence over power figures and masses of people from time immemorial, primarily to cow, shake down and fleece paranoic power figures and masses of people with the specter and power of fright gripping onto their susceptible or out-of-control sense of fear. After year 2012 has passed as just another normal year racked with perennial natural, societal and political disasters and terrorist incidents and war, the modern-day versions of these hoax perpetrators, who will have cashed in on this latest doomsday legend and myth with their books, CDs, lectures, radio interviews and movies to the near end of 2012, will reinterpret a new doomsday date to cover up their con game and restart the con game with another fleecing try, if their dupes haven’t grown weary and skeptical of them in the large majority and dropped out of their control. It’s all about “psyching out” the mark or dupe for control and/or fun.
Yours truly,
The Cosmological Prophet
Importantly, you left out mention of “astrologers” in your list of charlatans. Also I think it’s good to highlight that “psyching out” must include “spooking.”
we shold believe nasa cause its going on truthness.
I don’t doubt that the world will end at some point, that it will be a very long time from now, and have nothing to do with anyone’s calendar. I’m only moved to comment because it’s so appalling to think anyone believes in this 2012 scenario D:
I know our scientists are working hard on this baffling problem: but why are seemingly more than half our human species very silly? Please tell me someone. I hadn’t been fully aware of this problem until the advent of the www.
although i believe that the world will not come to an end in 2012 as it seems highly unlikely i do believe that there could be a change whether it be small or large. The mayan calender and other prophets predicted the end of one era and the start of another this to me means that maybe the weather is gunna change a bit, oh wait thats kind of already happening. Maybe earth is just going through a change like it has done before and will do again.
the one and only way to know the truth is by hacking IT
Sadly enough, this earth needs a 2012 to happen, so it can wipe out a majority of our disgusting and repulsive species. We as humans want to think of so many creatures as dangerous, disease carrying filth, yet we’re the ones aimlessly and needlessly killing and rampaging through our own society at will, and destroying our beautifull planet at will. We take our little lot in this vast universe for granted, treat eachother with pure hatred, like everyone else except ourselves are dirt on our shoes and shouldn’t be allowed to take our next breath. The human race repulses me. Lets be honest, only about 10% of the worlds population is worth saving, and only 1% of those people live in America. I say bring on 2012, I’m ready.
Although this is a very negative comment, I tend to agree with you. Society, and not just America, but on a global scale, is WAY overdue to be knocked off it’s high horse. A doomsday threat would do just that.
I’m not a true believer of the 2012 doomday. I a true believe of what the bible says about no man know the day or the hour that the lord will return. When you think about the human theory on 2012 doomday think about the Y2K scare, the cuban missile in the 1960s that many believe that will spark WW3, and the war of the world in the 1930s, 40s that a myth on the human and the outside world battleing out to the death. So i also believe that many people today take thing way out of control when it come to myth or theory like these
Sometimes it’s hard to believe we are the most intelligent species on this planet. What with some members of the species spouting nonsense and many people totally believing it.
It’s just like Y2K. The people who babble the most about doomsday, want one thing and one thing only…YOUR MONEY. They want you to buy their books, survival kits, attend their conference/symposium. Just like Y2K. Doomsday scenarios have no valid scientific proof whatsoever.
And what of the modern day Mayans? The actual decendants of the people who created this calendar? What do they think about 2012…well basically they think westerners are going crazy over nothing. If anything, it’s the beginning of a new cycle, not the end of the world. They might do a little celebrating, or pray, but essentially just like the rest of us when the old calendar ends…they just move on to the new calendar. It’s what we do every new year’s day.
absoluetly..i agree wid u..
Is that why they built the international space center so all the rich people can go there when it happens?
I believe NASA.
You need to Learn how to spell! it amazes me when idiots, like you, try to form rational arguments but lack the ability to spell president correctly! Either, your ten years old or a retard. Keep your idiot opinions to yourself.
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