NASA is so sure the world won’t come to an end on Dec˳ 21, 2012, they have already released this news item for the day after˳
Dec˳ 22, 2012: If you’re reading this story, it means one thing: The World Didn’t End Yesterday˳
According to media reports of an ancient Maya prophecy, the world was supposed to be destroyed on Dec˳ 21, 2012˳
Apparently not˳
“The whole thing was a misconception from the very beginning,” says Dr˳ John Carlson, director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy˳ “The Maya calendar did not end on Dec˳ 21, 2012, and there were no Maya prophecies foretelling the end of the world on that date˳”
The truth, says Carlson, is more interesting than fiction˳
Carlson is a hard-nosed scientist-a radio astronomer who earned his degree studying distant galaxies˳ He became interested in the 2012 phenomenon in the early 70s when he attended a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and learned about the lost civilization of the Maya˳
Where the rain forests of Mesoamerica now stand, a great civilization once flourished˳ The people of Maya society built vast cities, ornate temples, and towering pyramids˳ At its peak around 800 A˳D˳, the population numbered more than 2,000 people per square mile in the cities – comparable to modern Los Angeles County˳ The Maya mastered astronomy, developed an elaborate written language, and left behind exquisite artifacts˳
Most compelling to Carlson was the Maya’s expansive sense of time˳ “The times Mayas used dwarf any time scales currently used by modern astronomers,” he explains˳ “According to our science, the Big Bang occurred 13˳7 billion years ago˳
There are dates and time references in Mayan ruins that stretch back a billion billion times farther than that˳”
The Maya Long Count Calendar was designed to keep track of such long intervals˳ “It is the most complex calendar system ever developed by people anywhere˳”
Written using modern typography, the Long Count Calendar resembles the odometer in a car˳ It’s a modified base-20 system in which rotating digits represent powers of 20 days˳ Because the digits rotate, the calendar can “roll over” and repeat itself; this repetition is key to the 2012 phenomenon˳
According to Maya theology, the world was created 5125 years ago, on a date modern people would write “August 11, 3114 BC˳” At the time, the Maya calendar looked like this: 13˳0˳0˳0˳0
On Dec˳ 21, 2012, it is exactly the same: 13˳0˳0˳0˳0
In the language of Maya scholars, 13 Bak’tuns or 13 times 144,000 days elapsed between the two dates˳ This was a significant interval in Maya theology, but, stresses Carlson, not a destructive one˳ None of the thousands of ruins, tablets, and standing stones that archeologists have examined foretell an end of the world˳
Modern science agrees˳ NASA experts recently gathered in a Google hangout to review their own findings with the public˳
Don Yeomans, head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program, stated that no known asteroids or comets are on a collision course with Earth˳
Neither is a rogue planet coming to destroy us˳ “If there were anything out there like a planet headed for Earth,” said NASA astrobiologist David Morrison, “it would already be [one of the] brightest objects in the sky˳ Everybody on Earth could see it˳ You don’t need to ask the government, just go out and look˳ It’s not there˳”
Lika Guhathakurta, head of NASA’s Living with a Star Program, says the sun is not a threat, either˳ “The sun has been flaring for billions of years-long before the Maya even existed-and it has never once destroyed the world˳”
“Right now the sun is approaching the maximum of its 11-year activity cycle,” she added, “but this is the wimpiest solar cycle of the past 50 years˳ Reports to the contrary are exaggerated˳”
What would an ancient Maya think about all this hoopla? Carlson believes he knows the answer˳
“If we could time warp a Maya to the present day, they would say that Dec˳ 21, 2012, is a very important date˳ Many Maya believed that their gods who created the world 5125 years ago would return˳ One of them in particular, an enigmatic deity named Bolon Yokte’ K’uh, would conduct old rites of passage, to set space and time in order, and to regenerate the cosmos˳” The world would be refreshed, not destroyed˳
“I have been waiting to experience this day for more than 30 years,” he says˳
For him, “experiencing Dec˳ 21, 2012” means visiting the Maya homeland in the Yucatan, and thinking back to the height of Maya civilization, when ancient humans contemplated expanses of time orders of magnitude beyond modern horizons˳
And, of course, appreciating the fact that The World Didn’t End Yesterday˳
Author: Dr˳ Tony Phillips | Production editor: Dr˳ Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
