Page 17 - 200911 - The 'X' Chronicles newspaper - November 2009

november2009_june_july_2009.qxd 23/11/2009 4:37 PM Page 17 17 Ask An Astrobiologist 17 Ask An Astrobiologist Nibiru and Doomsday 16. All my school friends are telling me that we naked eye in spring 2009. If a large planet or Nibiru and Doomsday are all going to die in the year 2012 due to a brown dwarf were headed for the inner solar 2012: Questions and meteor hitting earth. Is this true? system in 2012, it would already be tracked by 2012: Questions and Your friends are wrong. The Earth has Answers always been subject to impacts by comets and hundreds of thousands of astronomers, Answers professional and amateur, all over the world. Do asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last you know any amateur astronomers who are Continued from Page 16 big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led watching it? Have you seen any photos or Continued from Page 16 to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA discussion of it in the big popular astronomy astronomers are carrying out a survey called the magazines like Sky & Telescope? Just think about 14. I have heard that the Earth’s magnetic field Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth it. No one could hide Nibiru if it existed. will flip in 2012 just when the strongest level of asteroids long before they hit. We have already solar storms in history is predicted to take determined that there are no threatening asteroids 19. What about the scary ads for the new film place. Will this kill us or destroy our as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All 2012? They tell us to look at these Internet sites to civilization? this work is done openly with the discoveries verify the doomsday threat. Near solar maximum (which happens posted every day on the NASA NEO Program The pseudoscientific claims about Nibiru every 11 years approximately), there are many Office website (neo.jpl.nasa.gov), so you can see and a doomsday in 2012, together with distrust of more solar flares and coronal mass ejections than for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in the government, are being amplified by publicity near solar minimum. Flares and mass ejections are 2012. for the new film from Columbia Pictures titled no danger for humans or other life on Earth. They 2012, to be released in November 2009. The could endanger astronauts in deep space or on the 17. If Nibiru is a hoax, why doesn’t NASA issue film’s trailer, appearing in theaters and on their Moon, and this is something that NASA must a denial? How can you permit these stores to website , shows a tidal wave breaking over the learn to deal with, but it is not a problem for you circulate and frighten people? Why doesn’t the Himalayas, with only the following words: “How or me. Large outbursts can interrupt radio U.S. government do something about it! would the governments of our planet prepare 6 transmission, cause bright displays of the aurora If you go to the NASA home page, billion people for the end of the world? [long (Northern and Southern Lights), and damage the nasa.gov, you will see many stories that expose pause] They wouldn’t. [long pause] Find out the electronics of some satellites in space. Today the Nibiru-2012 hoax. Try searching nasa.com Truth. Google search 2012”. many satellites are designed to deal with this under “Nibiru” or “2012”. There is not much more The film publicity includes creation of a possibility, for example by switching off some of that NASA can do. These hoaxes have nothing to faux scientific website their more delicate circuits and going into a “safe” do with NASA and are not based on NASA data, (www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org/) for “The mode for a few hours. In extreme cases solar so we as an agency are not directly involved. But Institute for Human Continuity”, which is entirely activity can also disrupt electrical transmissions scientists, both within NASA and outside, fictitious. According to this website, the IHC is on the ground, possibly leading to electrical recognize that this hoax with its effort to frighten dedicated to scientific research and public blackouts, but this is rare. people is a distraction from more important preparedness. Its mission is the survival of The last solar maximum occurred in 2001, science concerns, such as global warming and loss mankind. The website explains that the Institute so the next one was predicted for around 2012, 11 of biological diversity. We live in a country where was founded 1978 by international leaders of years later. However, the most recent solar there is freedom of speech, and that includes government, business, and science. They say that minimum was unusual, with a period of a couple freedom to lie. You should be glad there are no in 2004, IHC scientists confirmed with 94% of years with almost no sunspots or other censors. But if you will just use common sense I certainty that the world would be destroyed in indications of solar activity, so scientists now am sure you can recognize the lies. As we 2012. This website encourages people to register guess that the next maximum will be delayed, approach 2012, the lies will be come even more for a lottery to select those who will be saved; a perhaps to 2013. However, the details of the solar obvious. colleague submitted the name of her cat, which cycle remain basically unpredictable. was accepted. I learned from Wikipedia that You are correct that the Earth’s magnetic 18. Can you prove to me that Nibiru is a hoax? creating this sort of fake website is a new field protects us by creating a large region in There are so many reports that something advertising technique called “Viral Marketing”, space, called the Earth’s magnetosphere, within terrible will happen in 2012. I need proof by analogy with computer viruses. which most of the material ejected from the Sun is because the government and NASA are captured or deflected, but there is no reason to keeping so much from us. 20. Is it possible that the influx of questions you expect a reversal of magnetic polarity any time It is not logical to ask for proof that the describe is part of some kind of campaign for a soon. These magnetic reversals happen only once 2012 doomsday is a hoax. Your questions should book or movie, in the hopes that the volume of in 400,000 years on average. be to the doomsday advocates to prove that what denials is taken as more “evidence” that there they are saying is true, not to NASA to prove it is is a conspiracy? 15. I am confused about a report on the Fox false. If someone claimed on the Internet that I ask myself the same questions every day, News website that in 2012 a “Powerful Solar there were 50-foot tall purple elephants walking as the volume of mail I receive about Nibiru Storm Could Shut Down U.S. for Months”. through Cleveland, would anyone expect NASA (along with various alignments and pole shifts) They referred to a report from the National to prove this wrong? The burden of proof falls on keeps increasing — now more than 20 per week. Academy of Sciences that was commissioned those who make wild claims. Remember the Clearly there is money to be made from people’s and paid for by NASA. If nothing is going to often-quoted comment from Carl Sagan that fear about an approaching doomsday. Some of happen as a result of the event in 2012, why extraordinary claims demand extraordinary levels this hype is apparently advertising for the science would NASA allow such nonsense to be of evidence if they are to be believed. fiction disaster movie 2012 (see Question 19). reported? However, I think that astronomers have Many websites are selling books and tapes about NASA is pleased with the National reached the point where we can offer extremely Nibiru or even “survival kits”. It is all very sad, Research Council report on heliophysics. As you strong arguments that Nibiru does not exist. A that with so many real issues (such as global note, this report includes a worst-case analysis of large planet (or a brown dwarf) in our solar system warming and financial collapse) people are being what could happen today if there were a repetition would have been known to astronomers for many taken in by these lies. In the final chapter of a new of the biggest solar storm ever recorded (in 1859). years, both indirectly from its gravitational astronomy book (The Hunt for Planet X) by The problem is the way such information can be perturbations on other objects and by direct Govert Shilling, he writes: “There is plenty to do used out of context. There is no reason to expect detection in the infrared. The NASA Infrared for the debunkers – the archaeologists and such a large solar storm in the near future, Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) carried out the first astronomers who take a long and skeptical look at certainly not in 2012 specifically. Your reference all-sky survey in 1983, and several subsequent the tidal wave of Nibiru nonsense and explain to “the event in 2012” illustrates this problem. surveys would also have seen Nibiru if it were with scientific precision what is wrong with this There is no prediction of an “event in 2012”. We there. Further, if a large mass passed through the cosmic fairy-tale. They will have their work cut don’t even know if the next solar maximum will inner solar system every 3600 years, we would see out in the next few years. And on December 22, take place in that year. The whole 2012 disaster its disruptive effects on the orbits of the inner 2012 there will be a new pseudoscientific cock- scenario is a hoax, fueled by ads for the planets, and we don’t. and-bull story doing the rounds and the whole Hollywood science-fiction disaster film “2012”. I You don’t need to take my word for it. Just circus will start all over again. can only hope that most people are able to use common sense. Have you seen Nibiru? In distinguish Hollywood film plots from reality. 2008 many websites said it would be visible to the Always go to the professionals for answers!