The Truth About 2012, Solar Storms and the Fate of The Blue Marble

The 2002 Blue Marble featured land surfaces, clouds, topography, and city lights at a maximum resolution of 1 kilometer per pixel. (NASA image by Robert Simmon and Reto Stöckli)

The 2002 Blue Marble featured land surfaces, clouds, topography, and city lights at a maximum resolution of 1 kilometer per pixel. (NASA image by Robert Simmon and Reto Stöckli)

The 2002 Blue Marble featured land surfaces, clouds, topography, and city lights at a maximum resolution of 1 kilometer per pixel. (NASA image by Robert Simmon and Reto Stöckli)

What is so special about December 21, 2012?

Let’s see. It is the 2012 winter equinox for the northern hemisphere. It is 10 days before the end of the calendar year 2012. It is a Friday. But what it is not is the end of the world as we know it.

There have been many prognostications about the end of the world supposedly predicted by the Maya calendar to occur on December 21, 2012. The reality is that the Mayans did not predict the end of the world. But the misinterpretations of the Maya calendar have also led to a lot of very interesting scenarios to how the world would end.

NASA decided that it was important to address the reality of all these scenarios.

Below, NASA Scientists answer questions on the following 2012 topics:

My area of research includes solar storms and understanding the limits of the sun’s eruptive output. I worked with my colleagues at NASA to create a video discussing the reality of the solar storm doomsday scenario.

NASA is so confident that December 21, 2012 is not the end of the world that they made a video for December 22, 2012 entitled “Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday”.

Some of the best discussions of the topic are from Universe Today and Discovery.com including 2 by our colleague Dr. Ian O’Neill.

No Doomsday in 2012
Myth, Hype and Nonsense: Days Before ‘Doomsday’
Top 10 Reasons Why the World Won’t End in 2012

See you on December 22, 2012! -Alex