How About...December 21 2012?

End of...?

The date is getting nearer and nearer, many people may star freaking out but, should we really be scared of that?

I was watching “Natgeo” today, and unfortunately all I could find during the day schedule were tv shows like

“the end of the world”

“the real apocalypse”

“the mayan prophecies”

“the Armageddon”

And I really felt this immense need of writing and spreading the word of what is really going to happen this December 12 2012 scientifically.

But first of all we need to understand some previous information.

 

The Mayan Culture

The Mayan culture was present in places like Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and southern Mexico (Cancún, México, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Chiapas)

Normally very little is said about the Mayan culture, and believe me, it has gained this enormous fame lately thanks to all the misinformation about the end of the world.  But it is very important to know that Mayans had quite an intensive agriculture system and water management system during the era known as “preclassic” (900-300 bc)

Even though the Mayans were not the first to invent the “writing” method, they were indeed the first civilization to keep historical records, from the New World (America)

Now, let’s move on to the well-known part of this culture.

The Mayan Calendars

The Mayans had three different calendars which worked together as gears. Let’s think of these three calendars as gears, so the first and outer gear would be:

HAAB: or also known as civil calendar, consisted of 18 months with 20 days and 1 month with 5 days, being equal to 365, almost the well-known 365.2420 days we have in a year.

Next, there is one second inner gear, which corresponds to a 20 period ring, which has an inner ring with 13 days, and combined they lead us to the Tzolkin commonly known as the divine calendar or sacred round, the Mayan word for “the distribution of days” is a 260-day calendar, used to determine the time of religious and ceremonial events

And independent from those three rings is the:

Long Count: astronomical calendar used to track long periods of time, referred by the Mayans as the universal cycle. The long count has 2,880,000 days which is an equivalent period of 7885 solar years. According to the Mayans The “creation date” for the current cycle we are in today, is 4 Ahaw, 8 Kumku. According to the most common conversion, this date is equivalent to August 11, 3114 BC in the Gregorian calendar or September 6 in the Julian calendar.

So if the Long Count started in August 11 3114 BC, and it lasts 2,880,000 days, meaning the end and rebirth of time, when does it end?

Well, yes, as you expected, the Long Count ends in December 21 2012. 

Now, why is this causing so much panic?

Well it happens to be that first of all, December 21 is the winter equinox. Second this date is actually an extremely important astronomical date. This date corresponds to the 13,000 year-long period of cosmic alignment. 

Cosmic alignment

The cosmic alignment consists of this:

As you can see there is a dark line, between the illuminated areas. Well that image shows part of our milky way and that “dark line” is commonly known as “Dark rift”. What panics people around the world is that Sagittarius constellation is located within the galactic center, where, a four million times the mass of our sun, black hole lies.

So that means that in December 21 2012 not only our sun, earth and galaxy will align, but also this supermassive black hole. People tend to believe that due to this “strange” phenomenon our Earth will suffer from terrible natural disasters but…is it really going to affect us in any way?

This is the explanation said by NASA scientists:

            “Earth is 93 million miles from the sun and 165 quadrillion miles from the Milky Way's black hole. The sun and the moon (a smaller mass, but much closer) are by far the most dominant gravitational forces on Earth. Throughout the course of the year, our distance from the Milky Way's black hole changes by about one part in 900 million – not nearly enough to cause a real change in gravity's pull. Moreover, we're actually nearest to the galactic center in the summer, not at the winter solstice”

And if you want to confirm this data in a simple yet consistent way, take a paper clip and go to your fridge and take a magnet. Place the paper clip on your palm while taking the magnet nearer and nearer until “zap” the paper clip suddenly jumps towards the magnet. Well dear readers you’ve just experienced that Gravity is not a very strong elemental force, because as you can see, magnetism beats gravity.

Dear readers I would recommend you not to panic, but to take your telescopes and admire our celestial bodies and this spectacular astronomical phenomenon that will only be seen once in our lifetime.

Enjoy the sky!

Thanks.

I.