Electrical Circuit Between Saturn and Enceladus

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This artist's concept shows a glowing patch of ultraviolet light near Saturn's north pole that occurs at the "footprint" of the magnetic connection between Saturn and its moon Enceladus. The footprint and magnetic field lines are not visible to the naked eye, but were detected by the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph and the fields and particles instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The footprint, newly discovered by Cassini, marks the presence of an electrical circuit that connects Saturn with Enceladus and accelerates electrons and ions along the magnetic field lines. In this image, the footprint is in the white box marked on Saturn, with the magnetic field lines in white and purple.

A larger white square above Enceladus shows a cross-section of the magnetic field line between the moon and the planet. This pattern of energetic protons was detected by Cassini's magnetospheric imaging instrument (MIMI) on Aug. 11, 2008.

The patch near Saturn's north pole glows because of the same phenomenon that makes Saturn's well-known north and south polar auroras glow: energetic electrons diving into the planet's atmosphere. However, the "footprint" is not connected to the rings of auroras around Saturn's poles (shown as an orange ring around the north pole in this image).

The Cassini plasma spectrometer complemented the MIMI data, with detection of field-aligned electron beams in the area. A team of scientists analyzed the charged particle data and concluded that the electron beams had sufficient energy flux to generate a detectable level of auroral emission at Saturn. Target locations were provided to Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph team. On Aug. 26, 2008, the spectrograph obtained images of an auroral footprint in Saturn's northern hemisphere.

The newly discovered auroral footprint measured about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) in the longitude direction and less than 400 kilometers (250 miles) in latitude, covering an area comparable to that of California or Sweden. It was located at about 65 degrees north latitude.

In the brightest image the footprint shone with an ultraviolet light intensity of about 1.6 kilorayleighs, far less than the Saturnian polar auroral rings. This is comparable to the faintest aurora visible at Earth without a telescope in the visible light spectrum. Scientists have not yet found a matching footprint at the southern end of the magnetic field line.

The background star field and false color images of Saturn and Enceladus were obtained by Cassini's imaging science subsystem.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The ultraviolet imaging spectrograph team is based at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The magnetospheric imaging team is based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md. The Cassini plasma spectrometer team is based at the Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini .

Image credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL/University of Colorado/Central Arizona College/SSI

at 2:00 AM
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Space Shuttle Mission: STS-134

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President boards Air Force One 

Image above: President Barack Obama boards Air Force One at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida after his visit and tour of Kennedy Space Center. Photo credit: NASA

The crew members for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori.

During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre.

at 12:27 AM
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NASA Delays Space Shuttle Launch Until Next Week

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Final flight of Endeavour pushed back due to heater glitch.

 The space shuttle Endeavour.

Victoria Jaggard
at Kennedy Space Center

National Geographic News

Published April 29, 2011

Hours before its planned liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the space shuttle Endeavour had endured pouring rain and nearby lightning—but was still on target for launch, based on weather conditions.

Instead, it was a problem with a line of small heaters that ultimately forced NASA to scrub today's 3:47 p.m. launch attempt.

NASA's next try will be no earlier than Monday morning, launch officials said today.

A planned launch of an Atlas V rocket from Kennedy on May 6 means that the shuttle lift-off can push to no later than May 4.

After that date, the next possible launch attempt for Endeavour wouldn't come until May 9.

Shuttle Delayed by Heater Failure

Endeavour's crew of six veteran astronauts, led by mission commander Mark Kelly, had already boarded their bus for the launch pad when the scrub was announced at 12:19 p.m. ET.

The trouble was caused by failed heaters in one of the shuttle's auxiliary power units (APUs), which provide hydraulic power for the craft's engine nozzles, landing gear, and other moving parts used in flight.

The APU hydraulics are driven by a fuel called hydrazine, Mike Moses, NASA's launch integration manager for the shuttle program, said today during a press briefing.

Without heaters, hydrazine could freeze in the chilly environment of space, creating buildups of frozen fuel. This could cause problems during atmospheric reentry, as thawing chunks of hydrazine could trigger leaks of combustable fuel.

The shuttle does have two other APUs, and if one had failed after launch, "it would not have been a bad day," Moses said. Flight engineers have contingency plans in place to safely shut off a malfunctioning APU.

But since the issue was discovered before launch, shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach made the decision to scrub.

"We don't like lifting off without redundancy, especially in a critical system like this one," Leinbach said.

(Also see "Space Shuttle Launch to Put Giant Ray Detector in Space.")

Despite Scrub, Obama Makes Space Center Visit

To troubleshoot the problem, engineers first have to empty the shuttle's giant external fuel tanks—which had been filled just this morning with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen in preparation for launch.

When the tanks are empty—they take 24 hours to drain fully—technicians will be able to safely access the shuttle's avionics bay at the back of the craft to determine the extent of the APU glitch.

The problem could be a faulty thermostat, which would be relatively quick and easy to fix, Leinbach said. But if the thermostat isn't to blame, the glitch may trace to a switchbox called the load control assembly (LCA).

If something is wrong with the LCA, Leinbach said, the fix would be more expensive and time-consuming, possibly pushing the launch to May 9, at the earliest.

In the meantime, the shuttle crew has gone back into quarantine—remaining in special quarters to prevent contracting any illnesses before flight.

The delay means the crew will have a few days more to relax and spend time with their families before Endeavour makes its final flight.

The astronauts also enjoyed a post-scrub meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, who arrived at Kennedy this afternoon with his family as part of a planned visit to see the launch.

"Hopefully we can lure him back for another launch in the future," said Kennedy Space Center director Robert Cabana.

 

at 12:16 AM
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NASA Sets Endeavour's Last Launch for April 29

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Launch sign at Kennedy Space Center counts down the days to the STS-134 launch of shuttle Endeavour

The space shuttle Endeavour is set to blast off on its final mission at the end of this month.  The U.S. space agency made the official announcement Tuesday afternoon after a thorough review of the shuttle's readiness.

NASA says space shuttle Commander Mark Kelly and his five crewmates will blast off on Endeavour's last mission on April 29.

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for Space Operations, told reporters Tuesday that NASA officials gave the shuttle a clean bill of health.

"We reviewed everything," said Gerstenmaier. "We spent quite a bit of time talking about all the things, and I think the team was unanimous and we're ready to go fly."

NASA managers ran extensive tests on an external tank that was damaged during Hurricane Katrina, which struck the U.S. Gulf coast in 2005.  NASA determined the tank is ready for launch, without the same metal support beams that were on the shuttle Discovery's tank.  Those supports, or stringers, cracked while Discovery was on the launch pad, delaying its lift-off by several months.

Gerstenmaier also said engineers added more, tougher tiles to the underside of Endeavour's wings and fuselage for enhanced protection from launch-related debris.

NASA concluded that the shuttle and space station's equipment, as well as support systems and personnel, are ready for the mission.

The primary objective of Endeavour's 14-day journey in Earth orbit is to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer  to the International Space Station.  The spectrometer, or AMS, is a sophisticated detector that will help researchers study the formation of the universe.

"It will allow us to just learn more about dark matter, which makes up a large portion of the universe, which we really don't understand why it's there, or matter that we can't see with classical instruments.  So it was very interesting hearing about AMS," said Gerstenmaier.

The spectrometer will look for elusive evidence of anti-matter by searching for anti-carbon and anti-helium molecules among all discernible particles.

This will be the last mission for Endeavour, and the second-to-last mission for the U.S. shuttle fleet.  NASA is retiring the shuttles in order to focus on developing the next generation of spacecraft that could go beyond low-Earth-orbit.

at 12:03 AM
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NASA Updates OV-103/Discovery End State Requirements

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One month after the completion of her STS-133 mission, Discovery is nearing completion of Down Mission Processing (DMP) activities inside OPF-2 at the Kennedy Space Center. With DMP nearly complete, technicians will soon begin the initial stages of Transition & Retirement processing on the Shuttle Program’s fleet leader. With this step, technicians will follow a revised/updated Delta End State Flow Review for Discovery, as approved by the Program Requirements Control Board.
Background:

A few months ago, at the End State Flow Review (ESFR) for orbiter Discovery, “direction was given to place OV-103 into T&R (Transition & Retirement) processing as soon as practical following wheel stop” on the vehicle’s final mission: STS-133.
As such, a plan was put in place to safe and secure Discovery post-landing and to perform “minimal” DMP. This minimal DMP included the removal of Discovery’s OMS (Orbital Maneuver System) pods and Forward Reaction Control System (FRCS) pod and subsequent shipment of those pods to the Hypergolic Maintenance Facility (HMF) at KSC for initial post-career deservicing. 


Upon direction of the ESFR, an investigation occurred to determine what components, if any, from OV-103 would be required for retention as spares for STS-134/Endeavour and STS-135/Atlantis SSP (Space Shuttle Program) manifest flyout.
“OPO worked with IL to determine what hardware should be protected to support flyout of SSP. An assessment was also performed for rollover to the VAB during T&R for OV-103.”

 

This investigation yielded a list of several select hardware elements from OV-103 for removal during DMP. To this end, all hardware removals have been identified and are planned to occur prior to OV-103′s transfer to VAB HB 4 (Vehicle Assembly Building High Bay 4) in late-April/early-May for temporary storage.

All hardware elements not identified as necessary for SSP manifest flyout will remain installed on Discovery. Should their removal become necessary, however, a plan has been adopted to remove these elements either before rollover to the VAB for storage or after transfer of OV-103 in early June to OPF-1 for complete T&R processing.

This plan was approved at the PRCB (Program Requirements Control Board) meeting on March 18, 2011.
To accomplish complete protection of OV-103′s hardware elements (those not immediately identified for retention as spares through manifest flyout), Discovery will be hooked up to purge air during all DMP and T&R processing activities. She will even have purge air hook-ups during her one month of storage in VAB HB 4.
 

According to the late March, 2011 Delta ESFR presentation, available for download on L2, “While in the VAB, hardware can be protected by maintaining full purge on the vehicle.”
The purge would be accomplished through all three (3) purge circuits and drag on crew cabin purge. For this, the orbiter’s vent doors “will be placed in the purge configuration prior to leaving OPF-2 and moving into VAB.”

Should a purge outage occur while in storage in the VAB, no waiver will be taken; however, nominal purge will be restored as soon as possible and all necessary documentation on hardware elements taken for review by potential hardware costumers.
Furthermore, positive pressure on all vehicles compartments will be maintained during VAB storage.
DMP Operations & Maintenance Plan Updates: 
 

As originally intended and baselined at the OV-103 End State Requirements Review (ESRR) in September 2010, Discovery was originally to be kept in flight-ready condition with only select fluid system de-servicing prior to flyout of the SSP manifest.

“With the new direction to proceed directly into T&R following DMP, updates of the OMP (Operations and Maintenance Plan) may be required.”

Therefore, any changes to the ESRR baselined plan will have to be submitted for review to the GO Project & Requirements Office. The changes will then require the signatures of USA GO / NASA System Engineers and USA Orbiter Elements Representatives prior to implementation.
USA GO Project & Requirements Office will track all changes to the OMP for OV-103, with all changes to the OMP presented to the SSP prior to the completion of DMP on Discovery.
Display Site Requirements:

With confirmation that OV-103/Discovery will be handed to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum just outside Washington, D.C. expected on Tuesday, April 12 (the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight and the 30th anniversary of the launch of STS-1/Columbia), discussions regarding Discovery’s specific Display Site Requirements (DSR) and configuration for the Smithsonian can begin.

However, until those discussions are complete, Discovery’s T&R team will process OV-103 toward the SSP’s agreed upon generic orbiter DSR configuration.
As noted by the OV-103 Delta ESFR presentation, “Display Site Requirements (DSR) T&R Team has partnered the baseline display configuration. Configuration is generic to all vehicles. Any future changes or updates to the DSR [will] be handled in accordance with NSTS 07700 Volume XX.”
White Sands Test Facility OMS/RCS Processing:

For Discovery’s FRCS and OMS pods deservicing, a White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) tiger team was developed in October 2010 following a Technical Interchange Meeting to determine specific processing plans for these hardware components as well as a shipment configuration plan.
 

For shipment to WSTF from KSC’s HMF, all thruster jets will be removed and shipped separately from and before the FRCS and OMS pods. The thruster’s propellant supply lines will also be capped for transport.
For specific deservicing and display configuration processing, the Delta ESFR presentation notes that all “GSE (Ground Support Equipment) has been identified and is being refurbished/fabricated as required.”

Meanwhile, the specific processing plan for Discovery’s OMS pods and FRCS is still being finalized per the Project Management Plan and WSTF Test Directive. This processing flow is being mapped out as an integrated flow for not only Discovery’s OMS and FRCS pods, but Atlantis’s and Endeavour’s as well.

While no insurmountable issues have been identified for the shipment of Discovery’s OMS and FRCS pods, numerous elements for the transport are still under consideration. Not the least of which being STS-Last hardware requirements and impacts -specifically, the potential requirement/desire to keep Discovery’s FRCS and OMS pods in as close to flight-ready condition as possible until the launch of STS-135/Atlantis.
Should this be the desired course of action, Discovery’s overall T&R schedule would only be impacted by two (2) weeks.

 

Meanwhile, while the OMS pods and FRCS will be taken out of flight-ready condition prior their removal from Discovery, the Delta ESFR presentation notes that they can be returned to flight-ready condition if needed.

Nonetheless, if the pods are not required for future SSP use, several processing steps will need to be completed in the HMF before they can be shipped WSTF. These steps include: system draining, thruster removal & line capping, packaging for shipment, and loading onto commercial carrier vehicles.

Moreover, in terms of STS-Last Orbiter Hardware retention requirements, “JSC Engineering has compiled a list of hardware to be retained” through the flyout of the SSP manifest. This list was compiled with the assistance of KSC Engineering, SLS (Space Launch System), WSTF, and the NESC (NASA Engineering Safety Council).
These requirements have been implemented into the DMP and T&R processing schedules for Discovery.

Specifically, some of these STS-Last hardware elements are the payload bay ROUEs, ELC (Express Logistics Carrier) keels, DragonEYE DTO, LWAPA, payload bay & umbilical cameras, TSAs (Tool Stowage Assemblies), winches, PFR, and OBSS (Orbiter Boom Sensor System) sensor palates.
Replica Shuttle Main Engines Status:

Unlike the OMS pods and FRCS, which will be reinstalled onto Discovery as part of her final museum display configuration, her tell-tale and stalwart Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) will not be returned to her.

 

Instead, as previous reported by NASASpaceflight.com, Discovery and her sisters will be fitted with Replica Shuttle Main Engines (RSMEs).

The previously-flown SSMEs will be retained by NASA for use on the SD HLV, slated for official unveiling and contract bidding later this year.

For the RSMEs, NASA has completed dynamics/stress analysis review on the Ferry strut configuration of the RSMEs, design reviews, nozzle adaptor drawing release to vendors for bids, and OV-103 RSME installation plan.
It will take vendors ~3 months to fabricate and deliver the first set of the three (3) nozzle adaptors. 
Fabrication of all nine (9) RSME nozzles for Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour is currently in-work at Canoga Park. RMSE installation and closeout plans for all three orbiters are also in-work at this time, as is the overall RMSE risk assessment.
In all, KSC need dates for the finished RSMEs for OV-103/Discovery is July 5, 2011, October 3, 2011 (coincidentally, the 26th anniversary of Atlantis’s maiden voyage) for Atlantis/OV-104, and March 5, 2012 for Endeavour/OV-105.
Forward Plan for OV-103:
 
 

With DMP currently in work on Discovery, the Delta ESFR presentation team concluded that all T&R early start work for OV-103 can be accomplished in conjunction with flight processing for sisters Atlantis and Endeavour.

Furthermore, at the conclusion of DMP, Discovery will be ready to begin T&R processing in accordance with NSTS 07700 Volume XX. As such, Discovery will not be maintained in flight-ready status through the flyout of the SSP manifest.
“The plan for full-up T&R processing is ready for implementation, and the teams are requesting approval to start T&R processing at completion of DMP.”

((Further articles will follow, as we follow Discovery all the way to the exhibition. L2 members refer to L2′s ongoing coverage sections for internal coverage, presentations, images and and updates from engineers and managers. Images via NASA.gov, L2 documentation and Larry Sullivan - MaxQ Entertainment/NASASpaceflight.com).

at 10:07 PM
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Heliophysics

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ped and flourished. The origins and fate of life on Earth are intimately connected to the way the Earth responds to the Sun's variations. 

Understanding the Sun, Heliosphere, and Planetary Environments as a single connected system is the goal of the Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research Program. In addition to solar processes, our domain of study includes the interaction of solar plasma and radiation with Earth, the other planets, and the Galaxy. By analyzing the connections between the Sun, solar wind, planetary space environments, and our place in the Galaxy, we are uncovering the fundamental physical processes that occur throughout the Universe. Understanding the connections between the Sun and its planets will allow us to predict the impacts of solar variability on humans, technological systems, and even the presence of life itself. 

We have already discovered ways to peer into the internal workings of the Sun and understand how the Earth's magnetosphere responds to solar activity. Our challenge now is to explore the full system of complex interactions that characterize the relationship of the Sun with the solar system. Understanding these connections is especially critical as we contemplate our destiny in the third millennium. Heliophysics is needed to facilitate the accelerated expansion of human experience beyond the confines of our Earthly home. Recent advances in technology allow us, for the first time, to realistically contemplate voyages beyond the solar system.

There are three primary objectives that define the multi-decadal studies needed:
  • To understand the changing flow of energy and matter throughout the Sun, Heliosphere, and Planetary Environments.
  • To explore the fundamental physical processes of space plasma systems.
  • To define the origins and societal impacts of variability in the Earth-Sun System.
A combination of interrelated elements is used to achieve these objectives. They include complementary missions of various sizes; timely development of enabling and enhancing technologies; and acquisition of knowledge through research, analysis, theory, and modeling.

at 10:02 PM
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National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958

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The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (Space Act) established NASA as an aerospace research and development agency that sponsors and conducts flight missions to obtain data in furtherance of its objectives. In NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD), flight missions range from suborbital projects—including balloons, sounding rockets, and airplanes—to interplanetary probes and flagship observatories. All investigations and missions selected and flown must respond to Agency goals and strategic objectives.

Mission opportunities are open to all proposers, within fixed rules, via public announcement, and selections are based primarily on scientific and technical merit as evaluated by independent peer review. Foreign partners are frequent and valued participants in joint missions. The partnerships are generally conducted on a cooperative, no-exchange-of-funds basis. NASA also works closely with a number of other Federal agencies to implement and support our flight missions. To learn more about mission planning and development, see section 3.3 of the Science Plan for NASA's Science Mission Directorate 2007 - 2016 (PDF 5.1 MB).

This page provides access to all SMD missions, with several options for viewing. Click on the column headers below to change your view. The "All" tab will provide you with a complete listing that can be sorted to suit your interests.

at 9:59 PM
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All my school friends are telling me that we are all going to die in the year 2012 due to a meteor hitting earth. Is this true?

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Your friends are wrong. 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 (neo.jpl.nasa.gov), so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

at 11:43 PM
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I am confused about a report on the Fox News website that in 2012 a “Powerful Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months”. They referred to a report from the National Academy of Sciences that was commissioned and paid for by NASA. If nothing is going to happen as a result of the event in 2012, why would NASA allow such nonsense to be reported?

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NASA is pleased with the National Research Council report on heliophysics. As you note, this report includes a worst-case analysis of what could happen today if there were a repetition of the biggest solar storm ever recorded (in 1859).

The problem is the way such information can be used out of context. There is no reason to expect such a large solar storm in the near future, certainly not in 2012 specifically. Your reference to “the event in 2012” illustrates this problem. There is no prediction of an “event in 2012”. We don’t even know if the next solar maximum will take place in that year. 

The whole 2012 disaster scenario is a hoax, fueled by ads for the Hollywood science-fiction disaster film “2012”. I can only hope that most people are able to distinguish Hollywood film plots from reality.

at 11:39 PM
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I have heard that the Earth’s magnetic field will flip in 2012 just when the strongest level of solar storms in history is predicted to take place. Will this kill us or destroy our civilization?

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Near solar maximum (which happens every 11 years approximately), there are many more solar flares and coronal mass ejections than near solar minimum. Flares and mass ejections are no danger for humans or other life on Earth. They could endanger astronauts in deep space or on the Moon, and this is something that NASA must learn to deal with, but it is not a problem for you or me. 

Large outbursts can interrupt radio transmission, cause bright displays of the aurora (Northern and Southern Lights), and damage the electronics of some satellites in space. Today many satellites are designed to deal with this possibility, for example by switching off some of their more delicate circuits and going into a “safe” mode for a few hours. In extreme cases solar activity can also disrupt electrical transmissions on the ground, possibly leading to electrical blackouts, but this is rare. 
 
The last solar maximum occurred in 2001, so the next one was predicted for around 2012, 11 years later. However, the most recent solar minimum was unusual, with a period of a couple of years with almost no sunspots or other indications of solar activity, so scientists now guess that the next maximum will be delayed, perhaps to 2013. However, the details of the solar cycle remain basically unpredictable. 

You are correct that the Earth’s magnetic field protects us by creating a large region in space, called the Earth’s magnetosphere, within which most of the material ejected from the Sun is captured or deflected, but there is no reason to expect a reversal of magnetic polarity any time soon. These magnetic reversals happen only once in 400,000 years on average.

at 11:36 PM
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I am scared about the fact that the Earth will enter the Dark Rift in the Milky Way. What will this do? Will the Earth be swallowed up?

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The “dark rift” is a popular name for the broad and diffuse dust clouds in the
inner arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, which block our view of the galactic
center. The entire “galactic alignment” scare is pretty crazy. 
Late in
December the Sun is always approximately in the direction of the center of
the Galaxy as seen from the Earth, but so what? Apparently the con-men who are trying to scare you have decided to use these meaningless phrases about “alignments” and the “dark rift” and “photon belt” precisely because they are not understood by the public. I

t is too bad, but there is no law against lying on the Internet or anywhere else except in a court of law. As far as the safety of the Earth is concerned, the important threats are from global warming and loss of biological diversity, and perhaps someday from collision with an asteroid or comet, not the pseudoscientific claims about 2012.

at 11:34 PM
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When the sun and the Earth line up on the galactic plane at the same time with the black whole being in the center couldn’t that cause something to happen, due to the fact that the black hole has such a strong gravitational pull.

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There is a giant black hole in the center of our Milky Way galaxy, and like any concentration of mass it exerts gravitational force on the rest of the Galaxy. However, the galactic center is very far away, approximately 30,000 light years, 

so it has negligible effects on the solar system or the Earth. There are no special forces from the galactic plane or the galactic center. The only important force that acts on the Earth is the gravitation of the Sun and Moon. 

As far as the influence of the galactic plane, there is nothing special about this location. The last time the Earth was in the galactic plane was several million years ago. Claims that we are about to cross the galactic plane are untrue.

at 11:20 PM
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When most of the planets align in 2012 and planet Earth is in the center of the Milky Way, what will the effects of this be on planet Earth? Could it cause a pole shift, and if so what could we expect?

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There is no planet alignment in 2012 or any other time in the next several decades. As to the Earth being in the center of the Milky Way, I don’t know what this phrase means. If you are referring to the Milky Way Galaxy, we are rather far toward the edge of this spiral galaxy, 

some 30,000 light years from the center. We circle the galactic center in a period of 225-250 million years, always keeping approximately the same distance. Concerning a pole shift, I also don’t know what this means. If it means some sudden change in the position of the pole (that is, the rotation axis of the Earth), then that is impossible, as noted in the answer to Question 10. What many websites do discuss is the alignment of the Earth and Sun with the center of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sagittarius. 

This happens every December, with no bad consequences, and there is no reason to expect 2012 to be different from any other year.

at 11:14 PM
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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? Does this have something to do to do with our solar system dipping beneath the galactic equator?

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A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. It has never happened and never will. 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-shift 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. But they falsely claim that a magnetic reversal is coming soon (in 2012) and that this is the same as, or will trigger, a reversal of rotational poles. The bottom line is: 

(a) Rotation direction and magnetic polarity are not related. 
(b) There is no reason to expect a reversal of magnetic polarity any time soon, or to anticipate any bad effects on life when it does eventually happen. © A sudden shift in rotational pole with disastrous consequences is impossible. Also, none of this has anything to do with the galactic equator or any of the other nonsense about alignments that appears on many of the conspiracy theory websites.

at 11:08 PM
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Why does the Mayan calendar say the world will end in 2012? I have heard that they have been pretty accurate in the past with other planetary predictions. How can you be sure you know more than they did?

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Calendars exist for keeping track of the passage of time, not for predicting the future. The Mayan astronomers were clever, and they developed a very complex calendar. 

Ancient calendars are interesting to historians, but of they cannot match the ability we have today to keep track of time, or the precision of the calendars currently in use. 

The main point, however, is that calendars, whether contemporary or ancient, cannot predict the future of our planet or warn of things to happen on a specific date such as 2012.
 
I note that my desk calendar ends much sooner, on December 31 2009, but I do not interpret this as a prediction of Armageddon. It is just the beginning of a new year.

at 11:06 PM
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If the government knew about Nibiru, wouldn’t they keep it a secret to avoid panic? Isn’t it the government’s job to keep the population at ease?

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There are many objectives of government, but they do not include keeping the population at ease. My experience is that sometimes parts of the government do just the opposite, as in the frequent references to various terrorist threats or warnings about driving accidents on long holiday weekends, which are no more dangerous than any other time. 

There is a long history of associating bad things with political opponents (older readers will remember the “missile gap” in the 1960 election, younger ones will note the many current references to who is or is not keeping the U.S. safe from terrorists). 

Further, social scientists have pointed out that many of our concepts of public panic are the product of Hollywood, while in the real world people have a good record of helping each other in a time of danger. I think everyone also recognizes that keeping bad news secret usually backfires, making the issue even worse when the facts finally come out. And in the case of Nibiru, these facts would come out very soon indeed. 

Even if they wanted to, the government could not keep Nibiru a secret. If it were real, it would be tracked by thousands of astronomers, amateurs as well a professional. These astronomers are spread all over the world. I know the astronomy community, and these scientists would not keep a secret even if ordered to. You just can’t hide a planet on its way to the inner solar system!

at 11:05 PM
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Can you explain the fact that the area at (5h 53m 27s, -6 10’ 58”) has been blackened out in Google Sky and Microsoft Telescope? People suggest that these have been blackened out because those are the co-ordinates where Nibiru is located at present.

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Several people have asked me about this blank rectangle in Orion in Google Sky, which is a presentation of images from the Sloan Digital Survey. This can’t be a “hiding place” for Nibiru, since it is a part of the sky that could be seen from almost everywhere on the Earth in the winter of 2007-08 when much of the talk about Nibiru began. 

That would contradict the claims that Nibiru was hiding behind the Sun or that it could be seen only from the southern hemisphere. But I too was curious about this blank rectangle, so I asked a friend who is a senior scientist at Google. He replied that he “found out that the missing data is due to a processing error in the image stitching program we use to display the Sloan survey images. The team assures me that in the next run through, this will be fixed!”

at 11:03 PM
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There are many photos and videos of Nibiru on the Internet. Isn’t that proof that it exists?

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The great majority of the photos and videos on the Internet are of some feature near the Sun (apparently supporting the claim that Nibiru has been hiding behind the Sun for the past several years.) These are actually false images of the Sun caused by internal reflections in the lens, often called lens flare. You can identify them easily by the fact that they appear diametrically opposite the real solar image, as if reflected across the center of the image. This is especially obvious in videos, where as the camera moves, the false image dances about always exactly opposite the real image. Similar lens flare is a source of many UFO photos taken at night with strong light sources such as streetlights in the frame. 

I am surprised that people don’t recognize this common photo artifact. I am also amazed that these photos showing something nearly as large and bright as the Sun (a “second sun”) are accepted together with claims made on some of the same websites that Nibiru is too faint to be seen or photographed except with large telescopes.
 
One widely reported telescopic photo (www.greatdreams.com/nibiru-possible.jpg) shows two views of an expanding gas cloud far beyond the solar system, which is not moving; you can see this from the fact that the stars are the same in both pictures. A sharp-eyed reader of this website identified these photos as a gas shell around the star V838 Mon. Wikipedia has a nice write-up and a beautiful photo of it from Hubble. Another high school student was initially impressed by posted images of a red blob that were said to be of Nibiru. Then he worked out in his Photoshop class how to make just such pictures starting from scratch.

One video posted in summer 2008 on Youtube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDKtkWIx00A) shows a guy standing in his kitchen claiming that one of the objects discovered by a NASA x-ray telescope is Nibiru. What is his evidence? That since this false-color x-ray image released by NASA is blue, this must really be a nearby planet with an ocean. This would be hilarious if it were not used to frighten people.

at 11:01 PM
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Do you deny that NASA built a South Pole Telescope (SPT) to track Nibiru? Why else would they build a telescope at the South Pole?

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There is a telescope at the South Pole, but it was not built by NASA and not used to study Nibiru. The South Pole Telescope was supported by the National Science Foundation, and it is a radio telescope, not an optical instrument. It cannot take images or photos. 

You can look it up on Wikipedia. The Antarctic is a great place for astronomical infrared and short-wave-radio observations, and it also has the advantage that objects can be observed continuously without the interference of the day-night cycle. 

I should add that it is impossible to imagine a geometry in which an object can be seen only from the South Pole. Even if it were due south of the Earth, it could be seen from the entire southern hemisphere.

at 10:59 PM
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Maybe we should be asking about Planet X or Eris, not Nibiru. Why does NASA keep secret the orbit of Eris?

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“Planet X” is an oxymoron when applied to a real object. The term has been used by astronomers over the past century for a possible or suspected object. Once the object is found, it is given a real name, as was done with Pluto and Eris, both of which were at some time referred to as Planet X. If a new object turns out to be not real, or not a planet, then you won’t hear about it again. If it is real, it is not called Planet X.

Eris is one of several dwarf planets recently found by astronomers in the outer solar system, all of them on normal orbits that will never bring them near Earth. Like Pluto, Eris is smaller than our Moon. It is very far away, and its orbit never brings it closer than about 4 billion miles. There is no secret about Eris and its orbit, as you can easily verify by googling it or looking it up in Wikipedia.

at 10:54 PM
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How can you deny the existence of Nibiru when NASA discovered it in 1983 and the story appeared in leading newspapers? At that time you called it Planet X, and later it was named Xena or Eris.

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IRAS (the NASA Infrared Astronomy Satellite, which carried out a sky survey for 10 months in 1983) discovered many infrared sources, but none of them was Nibiru or Planet X or any other objects in the outer solar system. There is a good discussion from Caltech to be found at (spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/tchester/iras/no_tenth_planet_yet.html). 

Briefly, IRAS cataloged 350,000 infrared sources, and initially many of these sources were unidentified (which was the point, of course, of making such a survey). All of these observations have been followed up by subsequent studies with more powerful instruments both on the ground and in space. The rumor about a “tenth planet” erupted in 1984 after a scientific paper was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters titled “Unidentified point sources in the IRAS minisurvey”, 

which discussed several infrared sources with “no counterparts”. But these “mystery objects” were subsequently found to be distant galaxies (except one, which was a wisp of “infrared cirrus”), as published in 1987. No IRAS source has ever turned out to be a planet. A good discussion of this whole issue is to be found on Phil Plait’s website (www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/science.html#iras). The bottom line is that Nibiru is a myth, with no basis in fact. To an astronomer, persistent claims about a planet that is “nearby” but “invisible” are just plain silly.

at 10:53 PM
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The Sumerians were the first great civilization, and they made many accurate astronomical predictions, including the existence of the planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. So why should we not believe their predictions about Nibiru?

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Nibiru is a name in Babylonian astrology sometimes associated with the god Marduk. Nibiru appears as a minor character in the Babylonian creation poem Enuma Elish as recorded in the library of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria (668-627 BCE). Sumer flourished much earlier, from about the 23rd century to the 17th century BCE. The claims that Nibiru is a planet and was known to the Sumerians are contradicted by scholars who (unlike Zecharia Sitchin) study and translate the written records of ancient Mesopotamia. Sumer was indeed a great civilization, important for the development of agriculture, water management, urban life, and especially writing. However, they left very few records dealing with astronomy. Certainly they did not know about the existence of Uranus, Neptune or Pluto. They also had no understanding that the planets orbited the Sun, an idea that first developed in ancient Greece two millennia after the end of Sumer. Claims that Sumerians had a sophisticated astronomy, or that they even had a god named Nibiru, are the product of Sitchin’s imagination.

at 10:52 PM
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What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in December 2012?

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The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. Zecharia Sitchin, who writes fiction about the ancient Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer, claimed in several books (e.g., The Twelfth Planet, published in 1976) that he has found and translated Sumerian documents that identify the planet Nibiru, orbiting the Sun every 3600 years. These Sumerian fables include stories of “ancient astronauts” visiting Earth from a civilization of aliens called the Anunnaki. Then Nancy Lieder, a self-declared psychic who claims she is channeling aliens, wrote on her website Zetatalk that the inhabitants of a fictional planet around the star Zeta Reticuli warned her that the Earth was in danger from Planet X or Nibiru. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Only recently have these two fables been linked to the end of the Mayan long-count at the winter solstice in 2012 – hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

at 10:50 PM
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The Great 2012 Doomsday Scare

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Scenes from the motion picture  


The year 2012 is acting like a badly behaved celebrity. Frightful rumors and gossip are spreading. Already more than a half dozen books are marketing, to eager fans, astronomical fears about 2012 End Times. Opening in theaters on Friday, Nov. 13, will be 2012, a $200-million disaster movie that seems designed to break all records for disaster spectacles -- with cracking continents, plunging asteroids, burning cities, and a tsunami throwing an aircraft carrier through the White House. The movie's ominous slogan: "Find out the truth." Two other major movies about the 2012 doomsday are also reported to be in the works.

Anyone who cruises the internet or all-night talk radio knows why. The ancient Mayan of Mexico and Guatemala kept a calendar that is about to roll up the red carpet of time, swing the solar system into transcendental alignment with the heart of the Milky Way, and turn Earth into a bowling pin for a rogue planet heading down our alley for a strike.

None of it is true. People you know, however, are likely becoming a bit afraid that modern astronomy and Maya secrets are indeed conspiring to bring our doom. If people know you’re an astronomer, they will soon be asking you all about it.

Here is what you need to know.

Birth of a Notion
We"ve had similar scares in the recent past, but none quite like this. The last time the world got all worked up over the mystical turning of a calendar was the false Millennium of Jan. 1, 2000. Never mind the actual Y2K computer-date bug. True-believer authors (and their imitators) published scary and/or hopeful books about the moment's prophetic potential to catch an immense cosmic wave and change everything for either good or ill. Borrowing a forecast from Nostradamus, the 16th-century French riddler, author Charles Berlitz predicted catastrophe in his 1981 book Doomsday 1999. Berlitz (fresh off books on Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle), warned that 1999 could inflict flood, famine, pollution and a shift of Earth's magnetic poles. He also spotlighted the planetary alignment of May 5, 2000, and warned that it could bring solar flares, severe earthquakes, "land changes" and "seismic explosions."

In the 1990s an entire "Earth Changes" movement swelled into being as the end of the century neared, with all sorts of Millennial expectations -- earthquakes, plagues, polar axis shifts, continents sliding into the sea, Atlantis rising and more. In England, the Sun tabloid predicted a "marvelous millennium of joy, peace, prosperity."

When Jan. 1, 2000, came and went with nothing worse than ski-lift passes printing the date as 1900, the focus shifted to "5/5/2000" several months later. Most believers in the power of planetary alignments forgot the failure of earlier lineups to induce disaster. The "Jupiter Effect" cataclysm predicted for March 10, 1982 (named for the 1974 book about it by John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann) commanded headlines but never materialized.

Throughout history, end-of-the-world movements missing their mark number in the "hundreds of thousands at the very least, says Richard Landes, historian at Boston University and director of its Center for Millennial Studies. But people eager for the world to end are not to be denied, and this time, of course, all will be different.

The Rollover
What exactly is the Maya calendar about to do? On Dec. 21, 2012, it will display the equivalent of a string of zeros, like the odometer turning over on your car, with the close of something like a millennium. In Maya calendrics, however, it's not the end of a thousand years. It's the end of Baktun 13. The Maya calendar was based on multiple cycles of time, and the baktun was one of them. A baktun is 144,000 days: a little more than 394 years.

Scholars have deciphered how the Mayan calendar worked from historical texts and ancient inscriptions, and they have accurately correlated so-called Maya Long Count dates with the equivalent dates in our calendar. Just as we number our years counting from a historically and culturally significant event (the presumed birth year of Christ), Maya times were numbered from a date endowed with religious and cosmic significance: the creation date of the present world order. A Long Count date is the tally of days from that mythic startup. Most experts think the start point corresponds to Aug. 11, 3114 B.C.

Most of the Maya calendar intervals accumulate as multiples of 20. An interval of 7,200 days (360 × 20) was known as a katun. It takes 20 katuns to complete a baktun (20 × 7,200 = 144,000 days). Although some ancient inscriptions turn 13 baktuns into an important reset milestone, others imply that the calendar simply keeps running. For instance, it takes 20 baktuns to make a pictun.

No one paid much attention to the end of Baktun 13 until fairly recently. In 1975 Frank Waters, a romantic and speculative author, devoted a brief section to the subject in his book Mexico Mystique. He identified the 13-baktun interval as a "Mayan Great Cycle," overestimated its duration as 5,200 years, and equated five such cycles with five legendary eras, each of which ends in the world’s destruction and rebirth. There is no genuine Maya tradition behind any of this.

Waters also miscalculated the date when the calendar would supposedly pull down the shades. "The end of the Great Cycle . . . will occur Dec. 24, 2011 A.D.," he announced, when the world "will be destroyed by catastrophic earthquakes." Exact date aside, the doomsday ball was now rolling.

Another book in 1975 also spotlighted the Maya calendric roundup. Dennis and Terence McKenna discussed it in The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. That book at least got the Baktun-13 end date right: Dec. 21, 2012. It also noted that the date is the winter solstice, when the Sun will be "in the constellation Sagittarius, only about 3 degrees from the Galactic Center, which, also coincidentally, is within 2 degrees of the ecliptic." The McKennas continued, "Because the winter solstice node is precessing, it is moving closer and closer to the point on the ecliptic where it will eclipse the galactic center." In reality this event will never happen, but it hardly matters. The McKennas linked the whole arrangement with the concept of renewal and called 2012 a moment of "potential transformative opportunity."

Broader interest in 2012 caught on beginning in 1987. In The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, José Argüelles (an "artist, poet, and visionary historian" according to the dust jacket) linked the 13-baktun period with an impalpable "beam" from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. According to Argüelles, the Maya knew when we entered this beam and when we would leave it, and set their 13-baktun cycle to mark our passage through it accordingly. The beam, he asserted, operates as "invisible galactic life threads" that link people, the planet, the Sun, and the center of the Galaxy. Neither Maya tradition nor modern astronomy supports a belief in any such beam. It stemmed instead from Argüelles’s personal philosophy, which emphasizes "the principle of harmonic resonance." Argüelles also concluded that the planets are "orbiting harmonic gyroscopes" that “play a role in the coordination of the beam," which advances the development of anything with DNA. The year 2012, therefore, will bring a rosy version of the apocalypse.

If this sounds a bit familiar, you're right. In 1987 Argüelles and his followers predicted, with worldwide fanfare, that Aug. 16–17 of that year would bring a Maya-Galactic "Harmonic Convergence." That event turned into a global phenomenon, with thousands gathering at Earth’s “acupuncture points” to create a "synchronized and unified bio-electromagnetic collective battery." Unfortunately, the date passed with nothing more than colorful newspaper stories and a Doonesbury satire. (A character explains earnestly that that the alignment could bring either "mass unification of divine and earth-plane selves," or perhaps nuclear annihilation. "Either way there will probably be a crafts fair.")

Galactic Guessing Games
Fast-forward to 1995. That year John Major Jenkins packaged several of these themes into Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. According to Jenkins, the winter-solstice point and the centerline of the Galaxy will line up exactly on Dec. 21. Arguing that this motivated the Maya to contrive the calendar to end on that date, Jenkins concludes that it will be "a tremendous transformation and opportunity for spiritual growth, a transition from one world age to another."

In fact, astronomy cannot pinpoint such a "galactic alignment" to within a year, much less a day. The alignment depends on the rather arbitrary modern definition of the galactic equator, and/or the visual appearance of the Milky Way. There is no precise definition of the Milky Way's edges -- they are very vague and depend on the clarity of your view. (Jenkins says that he personally established the Milky Way’s edges by viewing it from 11,000 feet, far above anywhere the Maya lived.) So to give a precise visual position for its centerline is not meaningful.

Jenkins did acknowledge that the winter-solstice Sun actually crosses the center of the Milky Way anytime between 1980 and 2016. Elsewhere he expands this approach zone to a 900-year period, and settles for an imprecise alignment to which Dec. 21, 2012, is arbitrarily and circularly assigned. Real astronomy does not support any match between the Baktun-13 end date and a galactic alignment. The advocates both admit and ignore this discrepancy.

It's almost a sidelight that the winter-solstice sun will never actually "eclipse" the galaxy's true center, the pointlike radio source marking the Milky Way's central black hole. Moreover, the winter-solstice sun won’t even pass closest to it on the sky for another 200 years. What did the Maya themselves think about End Times? There is no evidence that they saw the calendar and a world age ending in either transcendence or catastrophe on December 21, 2012. Some Maya Long Count texts refer to dates many baktuns past 13 and even into the next pictun and beyond. For instance, an inscription commissioned in the 7th century A.D. by King Pacal of Palenque predicts that an anniversary of his accession would be commemorated on Oct. 15, 4772.

In all of the Long Count texts discovered, transcribed, and translated, only one mentions the key date in 2012: Monument 6 at Tortuguero, a Maya site in the Mexican state of Tabasco. The text is damaged, but what remains does not imply the end of time.

The Secret NASA Conspiracy
Some advocates for the 2012 catastrophe say that what will actually cause the devastation is an alignment of planets. There is no planet alignment on the winter solstice in 2012. Nonetheless, advocates of doom connect the fictional alignment to astrological predictions or groundless claims about a reversal of Earth's magnetic field and unprecedented solar storms. Many internet postings and guests on all-night apocalyptic radio have elaborated on these themes.

In particular, several threads of irrational thought have created an internet phantom, the secret planet Nibiru. It's the bowling ball, and Earth is the pin. There is no such planet, though it is often equated with Eris, a plutoid orbiting safely and permanently beyond Pluto. Some insist, however, that a NASA conspiracy is in play and that Nibiru, looming in on the approach, can already be seen in broad daylight from the Southern Hemisphere. It was supposed to become visible from the Northern Hemisphere, too, by last May, but like a fickle blind date, it stood up those awaiting it.

Others on the Web, confused about the supposed alignment of the winter-solstice sun with the Milky Way's center, have declared that the Sun is now plummeting to the Milky Way’s center and dragging Earth with it. The predicted result? Earth’s polar axis will shift. Most of what's claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy, and a level of paranoia worthy of Night of the Living Dead.

So maybe the Maya were on to us after all. The clock is ticking. And it’s the end of the world as we know it.

 
 
E.C. Krupp, a Sky & Telescope contributing editor, is Director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

at 10:31 PM
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2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?

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Scenes from the upcoming film 2012. Courtesy Columbia Pictures. 

Scenes from the motion picture "2012." Courtesy Columbia Pictures. 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, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know. It will, however, be another winter solstice.

Much like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the science behind the end of the world quickly unravels when pinned down to the 2012 timeline. Below, NASA Scientists answer several questions that we're frequently asked regarding 2012.

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 a 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-shift 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.

The Blue Marble: Next Generation 

Earth, as seen in the Blue Marble: Next Generation collection of images, showing the color of the planet's surface in high resolution. This image shows South America from September 2004. 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 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.

Addition information concerning 2012 is available on the Web, at:

at 10:23 PM
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NASA's Global Hawks Mark Year of Science Flights

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This week marks the first anniversary of the NASA Global Hawk project’s initial science mission. On April 7, 2010, Global Hawk No. 872 took off from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., for its first science foray over the Pacific Ocean in the Global Hawk Pacific 2010 - or GloPac - science campaign. Since that first science flight a year ago, NASA's Global Hawks have flown 12 science missions totaling 330 flight hours. The aircraft traveled more than 107,000 nautical miles to as far south as the equator, to 85 degrees north latitude and west toward Hawaii.

"The Global Hawk's early missions have provided some exciting insights into its potential Earth system science use," said Randy Albertson, deputy director of the Airborne Science Program in NASA's Earth Science Division. "It's range and endurance enables observations over parts of the globe that are difficult to reach for extended measurements over vast areas, particularly over the oceans and polar regions."

The first science flight, one of several in the GloPac campaign, lasted just over 14 hours. The high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft flew to an altitude of 60,900 feet and approximately 4,500 nautical miles. The flight path took the aircraft to 150.3 degrees west longitude and 54.6 degrees north latitude, just south of Alaska's Kodiak Island.

at 10:15 PM
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