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It ’s the end of the world ! Or not .
Despite the failure of a hoi polloi of end of the world prophecies over the centuries , believers are at it again , this time with an interpretation of the ancient Mayan calendar that pegs the final stage of the world as tomorrow , Friday , Dec. 21 .
Artist’s conception of the rogue planet Nibiru, or Planet X.
The so - called 2012 apocalypse has spawn a Hollywood film ( " 2012 , " issue with confutative timing in 2009 ) , official response fromNASAand the closure of at least one mountain in France , which official fear will be inundate with believers looking for atrip to safetyon a flying dish on Dec. 21 . Friday also happen to be the prescribed startle of wintertime , or thewinter solstice , when the top half of the planet faces directly away from the sun .
The rumors get their start because Dec. 21 in the Western calendar likely corresponds to the end of the 13th b’ak’tun of the Mayan Long Count Calendar , one of three calendars the ancient Maya used to weigh sentence . The calendar worksby counting first days , then 20 - day chunks of clip , then 260 - day periods and 7,200 - Clarence Shepard Day Jr. periods . Ticking up like a railcar odometer , the calendar finally keep track of 144,000 - day pulley-block of prison term call b’ak’tuns .
The thirteenth b’ak’tun
Thirteen b’ak’tuns would have been seen by the ancient Maya as a completed cycle of introduction , but there were dead no apocalyptic prevision associated with this date . Just as an previous 2012 calendar will be tossed for a new 2013 model , the Mayan calendar will proceed on . In fact , the Maya had units for bet even large chunks of fourth dimension than b’ak’tuns — their calendar is capable of tracking zillion of years . [ image : Maya Calendar Carvings ]
Rumors of an apocalypse linked to the Mayan calendar emerged only when Westerners got their hand on the numbers . hypothesis blew up , for the most part on-line , get the Mayan Book of Revelation one of thevery few grassroots Judgement Day predictionsin story .
Apocalypse rumors finally became so permeative that they brought the Dec. 21 back to the aid ofthe modern Maya , said Robert Sitler , a prof of Latin American work at Stetson University in Florida . Few Maya had given much thought to the calendar , as it fell out of use more than 1,000 age ago . Now , however , many Maya are devote the day its due , Sitler told LiveScience , though not as the end of the world . Most groups render the ending of the b’ak’tun as a time of modification and enlightenment .
No crack of doom
Many of the apocalyptic rumors surround Dec. 21 have focused on astronomic theories , such as a hit between Earth and an asteroid or a rogue planet . That ’s bring NASA into the disturbance . The representation has been working extra time to quash doomsday rumors , even maintaining its own debunking site .
Among thewilder theoriesis the idea that the magnetized poles of the planet will short riffle - flop , either destroying lifetime on Earth or sending us back to the Stone Age . Not so , agree to NASA . The North and South magnetic poles do gradually exchange and switch places , but the key watchword is " gradual . " The process take place over thousands of years and has befall many metre without disrupt animation on the satellite .
Another theory hold that a rapscallion " Planet X " or " Nibiru " will swoop up in from the outersolar systemto collide with Earth . as luck would have it , there is no Planet X. And if an object were set to arrive at the satellite by tomorrow , you could bet it ’d be seeable in the sky by today .
The bottom ancestry ? In the words of Walter Witschey , a Mayan account expert and a professor at Longwood University in Virginia : " You ’ll get up the next morning and go forward , and the Maya cps will have snap over another twenty-four hour period . "
