Apocalypse not now? 2012?

[Reaves]

I've been seeing a few documentaries popup about this date and while i'm not normally a fan of tin hat type stuff every now and then i'll take it out of the lead box and pop it on.

The Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012 and apparently this will be the big end of days. The thing that gets me with this one is that there is actuall scientific proof that on that date the Earth will in alignment with the Sun and the centre of the milky way and it's believed that this effect will cause the polarity to reverse. North will be south etc, etc.

August 15, 2006: On July 31st, a tiny sunspot was born. It popped up from the sun's interior, floated around a bit, and vanished again in a few hours. On the sun this sort of thing happens all the time and, ordinarily, it wouldn't be worth mentioning. But this sunspot was special: It was backward. "We've been waiting for this," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. "A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning."

"Backward" means magnetically backward. Hathaway explains:
Sunspots are planet-sized magnets created by the sun's inner magnetic dynamo. Like all magnets in the Universe, sunspots have north (N) and south (S) magnetic poles. The sunspot of July 31st popped up at solar longitude 65o W, latitude 13o S. Sunspots in that area are normally oriented N-S. The newcomer, however, was S-N, opposite the norm.
This tiny spot of backwardness matters because of what it might foretell: A really big solar cycle. Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, swinging back and forth between times of quiet and storminess. Right now the sun is quiet. "We're near the end of Solar Cycle 23, which peaked way back in 2001," explains Hathaway. The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, should begin "any time now," returning the sun to a stormy state.
Satellite operators and NASA mission planners are bracing for this next solar cycle because it is expected to be exceptionally stormy, perhaps the stormiest in decades. Sunspots and solar flares will return in abundance, producing bright auroras on Earth and dangerous proton storms in space.

The Mayans were known for their calendar as it predicted solar ecplises and similar occurances correctly. Not a small feat for a civilization that was consider barbaric by the Europeans of the time.

Now forget about you climate change, if that happens the crap won't just hit the fan, it'll engulf the thing.

Anyone else interested/seen/read anything on this?

[Chock]

I do remember hearing that they (i.e. astronomers) were expecting another major sunspot frenzy to come along soon. Apparently it can have a drastic effect on transmissions and really screw up communications and navigation fixes for ships and aircraft, and that has the potential for some fairly disastrous stuff.

Someone must have put the batteries in the sun the wrong way around, like I always do with the TV remote,

Chock

[Reaves]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast15feb_1.htm

The Sun's magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few months ago, now points south. It's a topsy-turvy situation, but not an unexpected one.
"This always happens around the time of solar maximum," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The magnetic poles exchange places at the peak of the sunspot cycle. In fact, it's a good indication that Solar Max is really here.
Above: Sunspot counts, plotted here against an x-ray image of the Sun, are nearing their maximum for the current solar cycle. The Sun's magnetic poles will remain as they are now, with the north magnetic pole pointing through the Sun's southern hemisphere, until the year 2012 when they will reverse again. This transition happens, as far as we know, at the peak of every 11-year sunspot cycle -- like clockwork.
Earth’s magnetic field also flips, but with less regularity. Consecutive reversals are spaced 5 thousand years to 50 million years apart. The last reversal happened 740,000 years ago. Some researchers think our planet is overdue for another one, but nobody knows exactly when the next reversal might occur.

I'm worried about what will happen if the earths polarity reverses, i'd be avoiding air travel around that date that's for certain.

[DeepIron]

Ever wonder what would happen to the Earths atmosphere if a sufficiently strong solar wind were to blow by? :hmm:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Ex...G373R8F_0.html

Huge storms can start from the faintest of breezes...

[Torplexed]

The Mayan calender does NOT end in 2012. It just simply rolls over. Sure, the long count comes to an end, and the Mayans believed many bad things might happen,(to Mayans) BUT on December 22, 2012 a new long count begins. It's very similar to what happened in 2000 in the Gegorian calander (in more ways then one) It just rolls over, like your car odometer does at 100,000 miles, like your watch does twice a day at 12:00.

However, we humans have an obession with 'magic' numbers and 2012 is shaping up to be the next big end of the world (non) event. *sigh*

And the bad news is we have 5 long years to listen to hucksters selling us on books, videos, misleading documentaries. Doomsday sells.

[August]

I have a calender right here on my wall that ends December 31st. OMG!

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

The Mayan calender does NOT end in 2012. It just simply rolls over. Sure, the long count comes to an end, and the Mayans believed many bad things might happen,(to Mayans) BUT on December 22, 2012 a new long count begins. It's very similar to what happened in 2000 in the Gegorian calander (in more ways then one) It just rolls over, like your car odometer does at 100,000 miles, like your watch does twice a day at 12:00.

However, we humans have an obession with 'magic' numbers and 2012 is shaping up to be the next big end of the world (non) event. *sigh*

And the bad news is we have 5 long years to listen to hucksters selling us on books, videos, misleading documentaries. Doomsday sells.

Will windows still work or will it be another Y2k meltdown again?:hmm:
Magic numbers....hhmmm, maybe the vikings will win the superbowl with these magic numbers? Where can you get these "magic numbers" you speak of? Wal-mart? Target? Do you need to plant them? Are they IRS proof?