Why didn't the world end yesterday?
Why didn't the world end yesterday?
Well, it's the wrong date for a start, but that hasn't stopped NASA prematurely releasing a video explaining why the Mayan 'end-of-the-world prophecy' won't come true.
A full week before the world is supposed to end on December 21st, 2012, NASA has released a video debunking the many myths surrounding the so-called prophecy.
'If you are watching this video then that means one thing ... the world didn't end yesterday,' the video begins.
The video goes on to debunk the claim that Nibiru, a rogue planet known only to the Sumerians, will crash into Earth destroying all life.
Conveniently, there is no planet, NASA says.
Another theory put forward by doomsayers is that the sun will destroy the Earth, but luckily for us, NASA says this theory is wrong too.
'Right now the sun is approaching the peak of its 11-year activity cycle but this is the wimpiest solar cycle of the last 50-years,' Lika Guhathakurta says.
Perhaps the Earth's magnetic field will reverse, causing extreme weather events?
Or maybe our planet will hurtle headlong into a previously undiscovered black hole?
Nope, NASA says.
In fact, there simply is no Mayan prophecy at all. The doomsday prophecy stems from a misreading of the Mayan calendar.
"The concept of time used by Mayan's dwarfed those of modern astronomer," Dr. John Carlson says in the video.
"According to our science the Big Bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago but there are dates in Mayan ruins that stretch back a billion billion times farther than that."
"The Mayan Long Count calendar was designed to keep track of such long intervals and is the most complex calendar system ever developed."
So there you have it. There is no doomsday prophecy, just the astronomical equivalent of failing to carry the one, or forgetting to set the alarm clock.
But then they would say that, wouldn't they.
