"December 21, 2012"
end of world ?
On December 21, 2012
at around 11:11 universal time,
there will be a precise alignment of
our Sun with the Milky Way Galactic center.
I am writing this on December 21, 2008 and thinking...
...that day will be happening on this very same date,
but only 4 years away.
I've heard the talk of winter solstice sun aligning with our galactic center. It's often mentioned by people with weak astronomical background, in the context of apocalyptic theories. But now I'm curious - could there be perceivable gravitational effects on our solar system? I understand physicists believe there exists a super black hole at the center of our galaxy. What is it with this alignment phenomena?
I personally think it is good to be skeptical about this stuff, while maintaining an open mind as to whether there could be some kernel of truth to it.
To understand what could likely to happen to Earth and it's people, you will need to remain calm and try to follow and evaluate the facts. It's not as simple as some people describe. It requires an understanding of some fairly complicated scientific realities. I hope you can spend sometimes to read the information below I have gathered from many sources. The fact is that I've always been fascinated with the moon, the sun, and the galaxy. This particular subject interests me greatly.
ThaiChicagoland.com
Confidence or Fear of the Future?
You don't have to believe the world will end, just start living your life like there is a possibility. Do those things you've been putting off. Take a cruise, try parasailing, hike the Grand Canyon, help friends or strangers in need, write a book, just do what's important to you? Just in case! try to understand more by reading from many sources I provided below.
Stop procrastinating and start living
11:11
Some interesting observations
11 August 1999 at 11:11 am there was a total solar eclipse.
21 December 2012 at 11:11 am the Mayan calendar ends.
The first plane that hit the world trade centre was flight 11.
Total number of crew on flight 11 was 11.
New York State is the 11th state of the US constitution.
September 11, 2001 is 11 years from 2012.
The world trade center commenced building in 1966 and finished in 1977. It took 11 years to build.
On September 11, 1990 at 9:09 pm (11 years prior to September 11, 2001) Bush Sr. made the very first speech entitled “towards the New World Order” at the UN.
Going back 60 years in time, on 11 September 1941 soil was broken to lay the foundation of Pentagon.
The American NASA project to the moon was Apollo 11.
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Remembrance Day is celebrated in Britain.
The word crown was derived from Anglo French word caroon, which is derived from the Latin caroona. The year the word crown was first established was 1111 AD.
The 1972 Munich Olympics provided the first world stage for global terrorism and the inclusion of the significant number '11' was anything but a coincidence.
11 Israelis were killed by Black September (the 9th month 9/11), a group with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization.
The Olympics were host to 121 countries.
121 divided by 11 gives 11.
Exactly what will happen on December 21, 2012 still remains a mystery but it seems that we are receiving stronger and stronger clues. The Mayas certainly placed great significance to this date. It is still 4 years away but our World is already experiencing unprecedented, extreme and rapid changes. The number and magnitude of "natural" catastrophes appear to be increasing exponentially. Scientists have detected extreme and erratic behavior in our Sun that in turn is having strong effects on our Earth's atmosphere and measurable effects on the other planets in our solar system as well.
Galactic Center alignment with our Sun
that will occur on December 21, 2012
2012 FOX news DOOMS DAY with GERALDO RIVERA
Geraldo Rivera reports on the coming events of December 21 2012.
*** Recommended video clip***
Fox News mocks many who believe world will end in 2012
Fox reports that there are "thousands and thousands" of people who believe that there is "a gathering storm" that will result in the end of the world in the year 2012.
This video is from Fox's Fox & Friends, broadcast July 9, 2008.
ABC NEWS REPORT
Will the World End in 2012?Thousands Worldwide Prepare for the Apocalypse, Expected in 2012
By CHRISTINE BROUWER
July 3, 2008
Source: http://abcnews.go.com
Two years ago, Patrick Geryl, then 51, quit his job as a laboratory worker for a French oil company. He'd saved up just enough money to last him until December 2012. After that, he thought, he wouldn't need it anyway.
Unprecedented catastrophe will precede the end of the world in 2012, believers say, such as massive earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanic eruptions, among other calamities.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)
Instead, Geryl, a soft-spoken man who had studied chemistry in his younger years, started preparing for the apocalypse. He founded a "survival group" for like-minded men and women, aimed at living through the catastrophe he knew was coming.
He started gathering materials necessary to survive — water purifiers, wheelbarrows (with spare tires), dust masks and vegetable seeds. His list of survival goods runs 11 pages long.
"You have to understand, there will be nothing, nothing left," Geryl told ABC News from his home in Antwerp, Belgium. "We will have to start an entire civilization from scratch."
That's because Geryl believes the world as we know it will end in 2012. He points to the ancient Mayan cyclical calendars, the longest of which last renewed itself approximately 5,125 years ago and is set to end again, supposedly with catastrophic consequences, in 2012. He speaks of the ancient Egyptians, who, he claims, saw 2012 as a year of great change too. And he points to science: NASA predicts a sharp increase in the number of sunspots and sun flares for 2012, he said, sure to cause electrical failures and satellite disruptions.
All this adds up, Geryl said, to unprecedented catastrophe. First, a polar reversal will cause the north to become the south and the sun to rise in the west. Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years. Only the prepared will survive, Geryl said, and not even all of them.
These may sound like the ravings of a madman, or perhaps the head of a small apocalyptic sect. But Geryl is not the only one who believes in the apocalypse. Thousands of people worldwide seem to be preparing, in one way or another, for the end of days in 2012. Survival groups exist in Europe, Canada and the United States. A simple Google search for "2012" and "the end of the world" brings up nearly 300,000 hits. And the video-sharing Web site YouTube hosts more than 65,000 clips informing and warning viewers about their fate in 2012.
"It's bigger than Y2K," said Mark van Stone, a specialist of Mayan hieroglyphic writings and author of a forthcoming book on 2012. "The year is like a pop song or a popular movie. You type in 2012, and you get hundreds of thousands of hits."
Dennis McClung, 28, a project manager for Home Depot from Phoenix, Ariz., runs one of the Web sites dedicated to 2012, an online survival supply store, which sells gas masks, knife kits, bullet-proof vests and more.
"I'm not a firm believer in one specific prophecy," said McClung, who runs his site with his wife, Danielle. "But I think we ought to be prepared for anything."
Even with December 2012 still 4½ years away, McClung said business is booming. His Web site, which features an "official 2012 countdown" clock and exhorts customers to "be smart, be ready," averages several thousand visitors a week. McClung's best-sellers, he said, are emergency medical supplies and water purifiers.
"I get a lot of hits from India. I get a lot of hits from the Netherlands," McClung said. "But my No. 1 customer is the U.S."
One of those customers is Thomas Lehmann, a 25-year-old factory worker from Cape Girardeau, Mo. Lehmann said he started researching 2012 when he was 12 years old, and still spends about two hours a day reading about the topic both online and in books. He said he is saving money for survival gear.
"Whatever happens, I'm just trying to be prepared for it," Lehmann said. "I'm just learning to be independent of the system. I mean electricity, vehicles, alternate sources of engergy. I'm learning to live without gas, basically be self-reliant."
"If this stuff does happen," Lehmann said, adding, "I have a way to eat. I can hunt, I can fish and I can purify water. I think it's people in the big cities that need to be worried. People that can't provide for themselves."
But for all the hype, there is little evidence the ancient Maya ever intended for the end of their calendar to be read as a portent for disaster.
"These prophecies of doom really don't have any basis in what we know about the Maya," said Stephen Houston, a professor of anthropology at Brown University and a specialist of Maya hieroglyphic writing. "The Maya descriptions barely talk about this event."
Instead, Houston said, the Maya saw their "long count" — the longest of their cyclical calendars — coming to an end in 2012 but also beginning anew on that date, without disastrous consequences.
"Really, it's a conversion of people's anxieties about our times, and finding some remote mythological precedent or prediction of it," Houston said about the origins of the current 2012 myths. "People like to believe that ancient wisdom is somehow predicting this time of upheaval."
John Hall, a professor of sociology at the University of California Davis who is writing a book on the history of apocalyptic ideas, agreed. He said movements predicting the end of the world often reflect a much larger nervousness about the state of our society.
"Terrorism, 9/11, ecological disasters, floods and earthquakes," Hall said. "[There is] a sense that modern civilization has had its run. Those kinds of anxieties are much more widely shared than simply among people who believe in the exact date."
To Lehmann, though, those very events are warnings of what's to come.
"We had Hurricane Katrina, the recent cyclone in Myanmar," Lehmann said. "We've got major flooding in Iowa. We're always going to have natural disasters. But they are picking up quite frequently now."
Lehmann said he eventually hoped to move away from Cape Girardeau, built on the banks of the Mississippi River, to the higher plains of southwest Missouri to keep safe from the floods sure to follow the earthquakes of 2012.
Geryl and his Belgian and Dutch followers have similar intentions, though their plan will take them much farther from home. They are looking to buy a plot of land high up in African mountains, where they'll be able to withstand the monstrous tidal waves and wait out the cloud of volcanic dust that they said would block out the sun.
Geryl said the group has recently zeroed in on a location, but won't reveal his find for fear of tipping off rival survival groups in the United States and Canada. On that land, Geryl's group, whose core membership consists of 16 people but whose wait list supposedly lists hundreds, will build concrete dwellings or outfit caves for survival.
After the cloud clears, Geryl said, they will attempt to create a new, better civilization.
"A guiding principle will be to keep the world population as small as possible so as not to get into the same problems we face now," Geryl said, adding that the group is currently looking for sponsors and hopes to move to Africa in 2011. "There is too little oil, too little grain in the world now. Those are the kinds of problems we want to avoid."
One of the group's members, Jan, a 57-year-old carpenter from Amsterdam whose name has been changed because he doesn't want to be identified in the press, recently drove five hours to attend one of Geryl's meetings in Antwerp.
"I thought, if there's a chance that we can start a new civilization, I want to contribute," Jan told ABC News. "Because whether I make it or not, and there's only a small chance I will, this is important."
Jan, who has never been married and has no children, said he has lost friends over 2012.
"All the people I've ever told about this have declared me crazy," he said. "It makes people feel uncomfortable. Now I just keep it to myself."
Geryl said he found comfort in sharing his knowledge with others. Since "discovering" what the future holds, he has written three books on 2012 and maintains a website on the subject.
When asked what would happen if December 2012 were to come and go without the earthquakes and tsunamis of his predictions, Geryl fell silent.
"I don't really contemplate that possibility," he said. "[My predictions] are so spectacular, they can't possibly be wrong."
What is the risk that a hidden asteroid in a stealth-path will hit the earth of December 21, 2012?
India Daily Technology Team
Jan. 3, 2007
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/15008.asp
There are thousands of asteroids in hidden orbits that scientists cannot observe. Many of them were seen after they kissed the earth and went by in galactic scale. The known danger from the asteroid is in 2028. But some scientists are watching the possibilities that a hidden asteroid in a stealth-path can destroy human civilization by hitting the earth on December 21, 2012. This is the same date when Mayans predicted the end of the world.
The probability that a ‘50-300 Meter (150-1000 Feet) Diameter Asteroid Hitting the Earth’ is 1 in 250. It can actually happen any time. The estimated fatalities would be 5000. The probability that a ‘1.5 Kilometer (1 Mile) Diameter Asteroid Hitting the Earth’ is 2 in 1 million with estimated fatalities of 1.5 billion. A similar catastrophe by a ‘10 Kilometer (6 Mile) Diameter, or greater, Asteroid Hitting the Earth’ has a probability of 1 in 100 million with 10 Billion fatalities.
Some scientists are concerned that Mayans in their time could see some hidden asteroid paths that are stealth today. The alignment of Sun, Moon and the earth on December 21, 2012 is significant because gravitational release of hidden asteroids can take place. The probabilities shown above are in normal circumstances.However, the probabilities go thirty times higher during galactic alignments. This means that if there is a lose asteroid in a stealth path, it can deviate from its path and come towards the earth. The biggest problem with the terrestrial science is that we cannot see these stealth asteroids till they hit us or go past us.
AOL News
Thousands Expect Apocalypse in 2012
Source: http://news.aol.com
(July 6) - Survival groups around the world are gearing up and counting down to a mysterious date that has been anticipated for thousands of years: Dec. 21, 2012.
Across the United States, Canada and throughout Europe, apocalyptic sects and individuals say that is the day that the world as we know it will end, ABCnews.com reports.
Ancient Mayan societies, known for their advanced mathematics and astronomy, followed a "long count" calendar that lasted 5,126 years. When their charts are translated to the Gregorian calendar, the international standard used today, time runs out on Dec. 21, 2012.
Believers say there are other links besides just the Mayan calendar that portend catastrophe. The sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years on the same day, which marks the winter solstice. Some say that will disrupt the energy flow to Earth, or that the high rate of sunspots or sun flares that NASA has predicted for 2012 could affect Earth magnetic fields.
Scientists have tried to squash the doomsday scenario as another empty prophesy, but it’s clear there are thousands who consider the possibility of a worldwide catastrophe occurring on that date very real.
"You have to understand, there will be nothing, nothing left," Patrick Geryl told ABC News. "We will have to start an entire civilization from scratch." Geryl, a 53-year-old former laboratory worker who lives in Belgium, quit his job two years ago after he saved up enough money to last him until December 2012. He’s now stocking survival supplies, a list of which runs 11 pages long.
Geryl is certainly not the only one. Searching for "2012 the end of the world" on Google brings up nearly 700,000 hits. More than 6,500 video posts about the day have been posted on YouTube. There are also countless books on the topic, many published in the wake of the success of Daniel Pinchbeck's "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl," which has been selling thousands of copies each month since it was released last May.
But what do believers think will happen on Dec. 21, 2012? Some say a polar reversal, where the north pole becomes the south, where the sun rises in the west, triggering natural disasters around the world. Others say the date marks a worldwide spiritual awakening.
Experts laugh off these notions. "These prophecies of doom really don't have any basis in what we know about the Maya," said Stephen Houston, an anthropology professor at Brown University and an expert in Maya hieroglyphic writing. "The Maya descriptions barely talk about this event." He said the Mayans saw their calendar coming to an end on the date, but then starting over without any catastrophes.
" Really, it's a conversion of people’s anxieties about our times, and finding some remote mythological precedent or prediction of it," he said. "People like to believe that ancient wisdom is somehow predicting this time of upheaval."Times- Herald
What about that Mayan calendar?
David Nichol, T-H Staff Writer
Source: http://www.thnews.com
Well, by the time this is read, we may know if there is going to be a bailout or not. You know, bailout? Of all the folks who supposedly got us into this economic mess?
Should there be or not? A bailout, that is. Do I know? There are those who say the sky is falling, and there are those who say we’ll make it through, even should the sky go kerplunk. There are those who say we can prop up the sky, if the sky will promise not to fall so hard next time and we appoint sky police to keep the sky in line.
Personally, I don’t have an advanced degree in economic gobbledygook. That means I am allowed to admit I don’t know squat, while the experts, who have jobs and titles to justify, have no choice but to pretend that they not only know squat, but know how to un-squat it.
So just who did get us into this mess? Well, it was just about everybody, including people who took out mortgages they had no chance of paying (Duh!), those who encouraged them to do so (tsk!), therefore encouraging bad debt (tsktks!), and maybe even me.
Me? Yep, and you, too. When we saw houses worth less than $100,000 going for twice or three times that much, we should have raised a ruckus. We should have asked, “What the sub prime is going on?” Did we? That’s a rhetorical question; you don’t literally have to say, “No we didn’t.”
To be totally honest, I’ve gotten a little concerned. It’s said that lending may stop altogether, which could be bad for business.
On an individual level, it may not be that bad, though, if folks have to start living within their means — provided they get to keep the means they have. The price of homes may actually deflate back down to their actual value.
No one so far, that I’ve heard, has raised the specter of the 1929 crash, when margin calls had people saying things like, “How could I lose $500,000? I never had $500,000!”
So is it the end of the world as we know it? Again I say, I haven’t a clue. There are a lot of Chicken Littles out there, and not just in financia circles. For instance, Some say the world will actually end when the Mayan calendar ends, which is Dec. 21, 2012 (Maybe we’re becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy; maybe this economic upheaval is part of The End). Only trouble is, there are equal numbers of folks who say that isn’t what the Mayan calendar says or even implies. And I’m sure that afterwards, people will discover that Nostradamus predicted it all (Funny how folks never figure out what Nostradamus was predicting until after it happens. Big help.)
The upshot of the whole thing is that we’ll just have to see. See what happens when Dec. 21, 2012 gets here. See what happens when there isn’t a bailout — or there is. Remember all the Hell that was supposed to break loose on Jan. 1, 2000? People hardly think about that anymore, especially since 9-11, which wasn’t predicted (except maybe by Nostradamus in hindsight).
I’m beginning to think the bailout may be necessary. But I don’t like it. I don’t like thinking about it. I don’t like the people who made it necessary. Guess I’m not overly fond of anybody today.
Los Angeles Times
Many gather to ponder end of Maya days
The calendar of the ancient civilization ends Dec. 21, 2012.
By Louis Sahagun
Source: http://www.latimes.com
Reporting from San Francisco -- Hundreds of people gathered near the Golden Gate Bridge over the weekend to ponder the enigmatic date of Dec. 21, 2012, the last day of the ancient Maya calendar and the focus of many end-of-the-world predictions.
In these times of economic distress, participants shelled out $300 each to attend the sold-out 2012 Conference, where astrologers, UFO fans, shamans and New Age entrepreneurs of every stripe presented their dreams and dreads in two days of lectures, group meditations, documentaries and, of course, self-promotion.
Normally, New Age platforms attract the interest of only the narrowest group of enthusiasts. But this one has been generating wider audiences because it so forcefully underscores the turmoil of the times, as indicated by the stock market plunge, Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Sept. 11 attacks, global warming and the possibility of a magnetic pole shift and stronger sunspot cycles.
To some, the end of the Maya Long Calendar's roughly 5,000-year cycle portends calamity, or the birth of a new age, or both.
The conference's slogan: "Shift happens."
The gathering of about 300 people from as far away as Holland was launched with the blessings of a Guatemalan shaman and the scary predictions of Jay Weidner, whose firm, Sacred Mysteries, has sponsored four 2012 events in the last six months.
"The greatest crisis in human history is unfolding all around us. It's not the end of this world, but it's the end of this age," he likes to say. "To survive the 21st century, we're going to have to become a sustainable world -- people should want to know how to pound a nail, milk a cow and grow their own food."
Now, a gold rush of "2012ology" is underway. A similar conference in Hollywood this year drew an audience of more than 1,000. At least two gatherings are planned for the Los Angeles area in the spring. "A Complete Idiot's Guide to 2012" was published last month, adding to a burgeoning market of books, CDs and History Channel specials suggesting that the ancient Maya predicted the impending end of the world as we know it.
Director Michael Bay is set to make a movie titled "2012," based on a novel about multiple earths in parallel universes slated for destruction.
Stewart Guthrie, professor emeritus of anthropology at Fordham University, was not surprised by the growing interest in newfangled notions about what those Maya time keepers might have had in mind as far back as AD 200.
"When events leave us feeling powerless and confused, we are more open to new claims about the disorders of the world," he said. "If people persuade enough others to accept their answers to this crazy world, it can become a movement, for better or worse."
For example, the Gulf War and the Oklahoma City bombing boosted the popularity of doomsday predictions of famine, earthquakes and social tumult. Some were cobbled from the spooky riddles and images in the Bible's book of Revelation, which scholars believe was actually written to help early Christians cope with their Roman oppressors.
In 1973, when the appearance of Comet Kohoutek coincided with a decision by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to announce an oil embargo, the big question was whether the chunk of dirty ice hurtling through space would be the most spectacular celestial sight of the century, or wreak social unrest, tidal waves and earthquakes as claimed by some members of the New Age crowd. As it turned out, Kohoutek fizzled and shot past Earth without incident.
Then there was the worldwide turn-of-the-century panic in the late 1990s that had corporations spending millions on computer fixes, and people around the world stocking up on Spam, water, batteries and energy bars.
The scene at the 2012 Conference here had the same giddy sense of urgency. Conference co-organizer Sharron Rose said the Maya timeline foretold "the most profound event in human history. Everything we know, everything we are, is about to undergo a substantial and radical alteration."
Exactly which direction to take, however, was unclear. The group is strikingly splintered, each focused on his or her own New Age theories: Spiritual teacher Jose Arguelles, for instance, contends that the Maya were prescient space aliens. And author Daniel Pinchbeck describes 2012 as a time for "the return of the Quetzalcoatl," the mythical feathered serpent of Mesoamerica.
Maya researcher John Major Jenkins drew enthusiastic applause from the crowd with a lecture in which he said that Maya hieroglyphics are rife with images of trees and animals that represent the center of the Milky Way galaxy and what he called "the Black Hole of Maya Creation mythology."
That kind of talk irritates Boston University's William Saturno, a leading authority on the Maya, who did not attend the conference. Saturno dismissed the 2012 movement as "this year's Nostradamus."
The ancient Maya civilization flourished in southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and lasted nearly 2,000 years from before the time of Jesus until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. The culture's achievements included soaring pyramids, a highly accurate calendar and intricately carved stone monuments.
"I had a guy come into my office once to ask me a question about a specific Maya mural with a depiction of a hanging nest in it," he recalled. "He claimed it was the exact form of a Maya Black Hole. I said, 'Nah, I'm thinking it's a bird nest.' "
"These guys are loony and are making a buck in a market that has to be short-lived," he added. "And they will continue to do so right up until Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya calendar simply switches over like an odometer and everything is fine."
David Stuart, an art historian and Maya glyph expert at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed. He didn't attend the San Francisco event.
"Looking back to the ancient Maya for answers to modern problems," he said, "is not the best use of our time or brain cells."
But astrological consultant Rick Levine, president and chief wizard of StarIQ.com, said such critics missed the point.
"People come to an event like this because they are hungry for information," he said. "You don't need to be a New Ager to know there's a lot of weird things going on in the world."
Telegraph.co.uk
Dutch prepare for Maya apocalypse
By Bruno Waterfield
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Thousands of Dutch people are buying boats and rations and building bunkers to await an apocalypse predicted by the Maya of South America.
REUTERS
The calendar of the Maya civilization, celebrated for its advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy, resets on December 21, 2012
On December 21 2012, the "Long Count" calendar of the Maya people clicks over to year zero, marking the end of a 5,000-year era.
Belying their country's rational and laid back image, thousands of Dutch people are convinced the date coincides with a world catastrophe, the Volkskrant newspaper reports.
Petra Faile and her husband have bought a life raft and other survival equipment in preparation for Armageddon.
"In another four years it will all be over," she said.
"You know maybe it's really not that bad that the Netherlands will be destroyed. I don't like it here any more."
Mrs Faile said she was concerned that immigration was pushing the Netherlands, a low lying country protected by dikes and sea walls, beneath the waves.
"They keep letting people in. And then we have to build more houses, which makes the Netherlands even heavier. The country will sink even lower, which will make the flooding worse," she said.
The ancient Maya civilization, celebrated for its advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy, flourished in Mesoamerica for six centuries from AD300.
Its calendar, which fell out of use after the Spanish conquest, covers 5,126 years and then resets at year zero on December 21, 2012.
Popular books, such as Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation Into Civilization's End or 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, have spawned a global movement.
As the clock ticks on the date, the Mayan calendar has assumed new significance for people who believe humanity is creating ecological disasters and needs to learn from ancient wisdom.
Study: Earth's magnetic field is changing
Observing fluid motions in core could help scientists predict future changes
By Jeremy Hsu
Source: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26273268/
The innermost part of the earth. The outer core extends from 2500 to 3500 miles below the earth's surface and is liquid metal. The inner core is the central 500 miles and is solid metal.
Something beneath the surface is changing Earth's protective magnetic field, which may leave satellites radiation and other space assets vulnerable to high-energy.and other space assets vulnerable to high-energy
The gradual weakening of the overall magnetic field can take hundreds and even thousands of years. But smaller, more rapid fluctuations within months may leave satellites unprotected and catch scientists off guard, new research finds.
A new model uses satellite data from the past nine years to show how sudden fluid motions within the Earth's core can alter the magnetic envelope around our planet. This represents the first time that researchers have been able to detect such rapid magnetic field changes taking place over just a few months.
"There are these changes in the South Atlantic, an area where the magnetic field has the smallest envelope at one third [of what is] normal," said Mioara Mandea, a geophysicist at the GFZ German Research Center for geosciences in Potsdam, Germany.
Even before the newly detected changes, the South Atlantic Anomaly represented a weak spot in the magnetic field — a dent in Earth's protective bubble
Bubble bobble
The Earth's magnetic field extends about 36,000 miles into space, generated from the spinning effect of the electrically-conductive core that acts something like a giant electromagnet. The field creates a tear-drop shaped bubble that has constantly shielded life on Earth against much of the high-energy radiation flowing from the sun.
The last major change in the field took place some 780,000 years ago during a magnetic reversal, although such reversals seem to occur more often on average. A flip in the north and south poles typically involves a weakening in the magnetic field, followed by a period of rapid recovery and reorganization of opposite polarity.
Some studies in recent years have suggested the next reversal might be imminent, but the jury is out on that question.
Measuring interactions between the magnetic field and the molten iron core 1,864 miles down has proven difficult in the past, but the constant observations of satellites such as CHAMP and Orsted have begun to bring the picture into focus.
Electric storm
Mandea worked with Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, to create a model of the fluid core that fits with the magnetic field changes detected by the satellites.
However, the rapid weakening of the magnetic field in the South Atlantic Anomaly region could signal future troubles for such satellites. Radiation storms from the sun could fry electronic equipment on satellites that suddenly lacked the protective cover of a rapidly changing magnetic field.
"For satellites, this could be a problem," Mandea told SPACE.com. "If there are magnetic storms and high-energy particles coming from the sun, the satellites could be affected and their connections could be lost."
The constant radiation bombardment from the sun blows with the solar wind to Earth, where it flows against and around the magnetic field. The effect creates the tear-drop shaped magnetosphere bubble, but even the powerful field cannot keep out all the high-energy particles.
Topsy-turvy history
A large sunspot set off a major radiation storm in 2006 that temporarily blinded some sun-watching satellites. Astronauts on the International Space Station retreated to a protected area as a precaution to avoid unnecessary radiation exposure.
The Earth's overall magnetic field has weakened at least 10 percent over the past 150 years, which could also point to an upcoming field reversal.
Mandea and Olsen hope to continue refining their model with updated observations, and perhaps to eventually help predict future changes in the Earth's magnetic field.
The study was detailed in the May online edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.
Read below if you believe something will happen on 12/21/2012.
How to Prepare for a Catastrophic Event On 12/21/12 Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_4662778_prepare-catastrophic-event.html
In case of a catastrophic event on December 21, 2012 I would like to supply a preparation guide to help get through in case of an emergency. There has obviously been a stronger buzz going around about this date that has not only been predicted, but also showing signs of scientific possibilities in recent years. The date is only 4 years away and it's never a good idea to wait until it's too late to start thinking of a game plan.
Instructions
-
Constantly pay attention to any natural disasters / changes to the world as we know it and take note of how much more effective these natural changes are becoming.
-
Saving some extra cash is never a bad thing. Could it be a bit tough with today's economy? Absolutely. But if you create a mindset to save "X" amount on a weekly basis, you can easily accomplish that.
-
Have a 1 - 2 month supply of water / non perishable food. This is especially essential in storm prone area's.
-
First Aid Kit / Medicines. This is something that everybody should have at all times.
-
Store a sleeping bag / blanket in the back of your vehicle. Even if you never have to use it, it is always better to have it and not use it than not have it and obviously not be able to use it.
-
Being prepared is not a difficult task at hand. Once you do it, you are set. Spread the word to friends and family and help them in becoming a prepared member in society.
No comments:
Post a Comment