The end of the world is near, according to theories based on a purported ancient Mayan prediction

One aspect of the 2012, end-of-the-world hype is, for some people, all too real: the fear. NASA, for example, has received thousands of questions regarding the doomsday predictions. A scientist has been quoted as saying that a lot of the submitters are genuinely frightened and that there have even been mention of people planning to kill themselves and their children so they wouldnt suffer through the end of the world.

Mayans Predicted End of the World in 2012

The Mayan calendar doesnt end in 2012, but December 21, 2012 (give or take a day) was momentous to the Mayans as it is the time when the largest grand cycle in the Mayan calendar - 1,872,000 days or 5,125.37 years overtums and a new cycle begins. Mayans invented a lengthy circular calendar known as the Long Count which transplanted the roots of Mayan culture all the way back to creation

Mayans Predicted End of the World in 2012

In December 2012, the lengthy era ends and the complicated, cyclical calendar will roll over again to Day Zero, beginning another enormous cycle So basically, the idea is that time just gets renewed, the same way we renew time on New Years Day

Breakaway Continents Will Destroy Civilzation

Discusses pole shift , where the planets crust and mantle will suddenly shift, causing breakaway oceans and continents dump cities into the sea, thrust palm trees to the poles, and spawn earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other disasters. But a Princeton University geologist Adam Maloof says that magnetic evidence in rocks confirm that continents have undergone such drastic rearrangement, but the process took millions of years slow enough that humanity wouldnt have felt the motion.

Galactic Alignment Spells Doom

Some believe that 2012 will close with a galactic alignment, where the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way galaxy. Some fear that this lineup will expose Earth to powerful unknown galactic forces that will hasten its doom. An astrobiologist from NASA, David Morrison, explains that there is a type of alignment that occurs every winter solstice but the reality is that alignments are of no interest to science as they create no changes in gravitational pull, solar radiation, planetary orbits, etc.

Planet X Is on a Collision Course With Earth

Some say that a mysterious Planet X, aka Nibiru, is on a collision course with Earth. A direct hit would obliterate Earth but even a near miss could shower Earth with deadly asteroid impacts. The origins of this theory actually claimed that the Nibiru doomsday was originally set for 2003

Planet X Is on a Collision Course With Earth

Morrison of NASA refutes this notion again by saying that there is no object out there, and that if there was a planet or brown dwarf that was going to be in the inner solar system three years from now, astronomers would have been studying it for the past decade and it would be visible to the naked eye by now.

Solar Storms to Savage Earth

It is also rumoured that the sun will produce lethal eruptions of solar flares, which will cause a considerable increase in the temperature of Earth Solar activity goes up and down according to approximately 11-year cycles. Big flares can damage communications and other Earthly systems , but scientists have no indications that the sun will unleash storms strong enough to fry the planet. Moreover, the cycle wont peak in 2012 but a year or two later.

Mayans Had Clear Predictions for 2012

So if the Mayans didnt expect the end of time in 2012, what exactly did they predict for that year? Scholars whove pored over the scattered evidence on Mayan monuments say that the empire didnt leave a clear record predicting anything specific would happen in 2012. But they did pass down an undated graphic end-of-the-world scenario which was described on the final page of a circa-1100 text known as the Dresden Codex.

Mayans Had Clear Predictions for 2012

The document described a world destroyed by flood, a scenario probably experienced, though on a less apocalyptic scale, by ancient people An archaeoastronomer named Aveni said that the scenario is a lesson about human behavior, and not meant to be read literally as a prediction. In fact, he says, Mayans werent future directed and where actually past directed, as dictated by their circular calendar.