When Prophecies Fail (even in 2012) by Elwin R. Roach

"Charity never ⁽¹⁾ faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall ⁽²⁾fail..." 1 Corinthians 13:8 " (even in 2012).

Many people are in quite a stir these days. Calamities have been streaming through the nations that have left them more than a little unsettled. There have been earthquakes, a tsunami that caused thousands of deaths and three uncontrollable nuclear reactor melt downs, political upheavals and corruption everywhere, economic woes, nations going bankrupt, and immorality running rampant in all walks of life. Moreover, many believe that the catalyst for an imminent, worldwide meltdown has to do with the Mayan calendar that ends on this year's winter solstice December 21, 2012. There have been an unprecedented amount of prophecies, fearful predictions, and speculations concerning this upcoming date.

According to credible researchers, it is said that the Mayans studied the heavens extensively and were very interested in world ages. But they also say that the record has been distorted, leaving several possibilities open to interpretation. In the Maya Long Count calendar, the one causing so much consternation and debate, the previous world ended after 13 b'ak'tuns, or roughly 5,125 years. This means that the fourth world, or age, will also have reached the end of its 13th b'ak'tun, on December 21, 2012. In 1957, Mayanist and astronomer, Maud Worcester Makemson, wrote that "the completion of a Great Period of 13 b'ak'tuns would have been of the utmost significance to the Maya." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon.)

Look Up! A Rare Planetary Alignment, Visible from Earth

ASTRONOMY

By Jeffrey Kluger

Good thing President Obama released his long-form birth certificate. Now we can all go back to worrying about an even greater threat than the possibility that the President is a Kenyan double agent: the much buzzed-about reports that the world is going to end in 2012.

It was the Mayans — or maybe the Romans or the Greeks or the Sumerians — who called the shot this time, evidently on a day Nostradamus phoned in sick. Apparently, a rogue planet named Nibiru (which frankly sounds more like a new Honda than a new world) is headed our way, with a cosmic crack-up set for next year. No matter who's behind the current prediction, there are enough people ready to spread and believe in this kind of end-of-the-world hooey that you have to wonder if the earth isn't starting to take things personally.(PHOTOS: an illustrated history of the planet Earth.)

Regrettably, the Nibiru yarn got a boost in recent days with the very real announcement that an alignment of several of the very real planets will be taking place this month, offering a fleeting treat for stargazers willing to get up before sunrise and take a look. Even this genuine cosmic phenomenon, however, may be a bit less than it appears.

Beginning today and lasting for a few weeks, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Mars will be visible in the early morning sky, aligned roughly along the ecliptic — or the path the sun travels throughout the day. Uranus and Neptune, much fainter but there all the same, should be visible through binoculars. What gives the end-of-the-worlders shivers is that just such a configuration is supposed to occur on Dec. 21, 2012, and contribute in some unspecified way to the demolition of the planet. But what makes that especially nonsensical — apart from the fact that it's, you know, nonsense — is that astronomers say no remotely similar alignment will occur next year.

"Nothing bad will happen to the earth in 2012," NASA explains patiently — if wearily — on its website. "Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."(See pictures of Earth from space.)

What's more, even this month's apparent planetary lineup is as much illusion as fact. In the same way a group of people scattered randomly across the room can appear to be aligned depending on your angle of sight, so too can planets that seem tidily arranged from one point of view turn out to be nothing of the kind when you look at them another way. The same question of perspective is true for our familiar constellations. View Orion from Earth, and he's a hunter; view him from the other side of the galaxy, and he's a frog or a tree or just a jumble of stars.

That's not to say there aren't truly meaningful planetary alignments. Indeed, there was a whopper of one in the late 1970s, which was accurately forecast by an engineer named Jim Burke at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1966. Burke used no sorcery to make his prediction, but rather the hard science of orbital mechanics — calculating the speed and position of all of the planets, projecting forward, and discovering that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were just 13 years away from forming a once-every-176-years conga line. NASA took stupendous advantage of that knowledge, building and launching the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, which embarked on a four-planet grand tour, sending back a portfolio pictures and a trove of data that have never been matched.(See "Mystery Planet: Is a Rogue Giant Orbiting Our Sun?")

Ironically, at the end of April, even as the Internet continued to buzz with apocalyptic silliness, NASA convened a press conference to announce that the Voyagers, which are still sending back a small trickle of data after 33 years in space, are preparing to pass through what's known as the solar system's heliosheath. This is the region, up to 9 billion miles (14.5 billion km) away, in which the final breeze of charged particles streaming from the sun at last gives way to the true emptiness of interstellar space.

The sky show the planets have planned for this month is a reminder of the aesthetic elegance the solar system can sometimes offer. The triumph of the Voyagers is a reminder of the no less extraordinary things science can achieve — provided we're able to ignore the distractions.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2070503,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-full-mostpopular

What sank the Titanic? Scientists point to the moon

By Jim Forsyth | Reuters

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A century after the Titanic disaster, scientists have found an unexpected culprit for the sinking: the moon.

Anyone who knows history or has seen the blockbuster movies knows that the cause of the transatlantic liner's accident 100 years ago next month was that it hit an iceberg.

"But the lunar connection may explain how an unusually large number of icebergs got into the path of the Titanic," said Donald Olson, a Texas State University physicist whose team of forensic astronomers examined the moon's role.

Ever since the Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, killing 1,517 people, researchers have puzzled over Captain Edward Smith's seeming disregard of warnings that icebergs were in the area where the ship was sailing.

Smith was the most experienced captain in the White Star Line and had sailed the North Atlantic sea lanes on numerous occasions. He had been assigned to the maiden voyage of the Titanic because he was a knowledgeable and careful seaman.

Greenland icebergs of the type that the Titanic struck generally become stuck in the shallow waters off Labrador and Newfoundland, and cannot resume moving southward until they have melted enough to re-float or a high tide frees them, Olson said.

So how was it that such a large number of icebergs had floated so far south that they were in theshipping lanes well south of Newfoundland that night?

The team investigated speculation by the late oceanographer Fergus Wood that an unusually close approach by the moon in January 1912 may have produced such high tides that far more icebergs than usual managed to separate from Greenland, and floated, still fully grown, into shipping lanes that had been moved south that spring because of reports of icebergs.

Olson said a "once-in-many-lifetimes" event occurred on January 4, 1912, when the moon and sun lined up in such a way that their gravitational pulls enhanced each other. At the same time, the moon's closest approach to earth that January was the closest in 1,400 years, and the point of closest approach occurred within six minutes of the full moon. On top of that, the Earth's closest approach to the sun in a year had happened just the previous day.

"This configuration maximized the moon's tide-raising forces on the Earth's oceans," Olson said. "That's remarkable."

His research determined that to reach the shipping lanes by mid-April, the iceberg that the Titanic struck must have broken off from Greenland in January 1912. The high tide caused by the bizarre combination of astronomical events would have been enough to dislodge icebergs and give them enough buoyancy to reach the shipping lanes by April, he said.

Olson's team has sought to use tide patterns to determine exactly when Julius Caesar invaded Britain and prove the legend that Mary Shelley was inspired by a bright full moon shining through her window to write the gothic classic "Frankenstein."

The team's Titanic research may have vindicated Captain Smith - albeit a century too late - by showing that he had a good excuse to react so casually to a report of ice in the ship's path. He had no reason at the time to believe that the bergs he was facing were as numerous or as large as they turned out to be, Olson said.

"In astronomical terms, the odds of all these variables lining up in just the way they did was, well, astronomical," he said.

The research will appear in the April issue of "Sky & Telescope" magazine.

(Reporting by Jim Forsyth; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Paul Thomasch)

http://news.yahoo.com/sank-titanic-scientists-point-moon-212700631.html

When Prophecies Fail (even in 2012) by Elwin R. Roach

"Charity never ⁽¹⁾ faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall ⁽²⁾fail..." 1 Corinthians 13:8 " (even in 2012).

Many people are in quite a stir these days. Calamities have been streaming through the nations that have left them more than a little unsettled. There have been earthquakes, a tsunami that caused thousands of deaths and three uncontrollable nuclear reactor melt downs, political upheavals and corruption everywhere, economic woes, nations going bankrupt, and immorality running rampant in all walks of life. Moreover, many believe that the catalyst for an imminent, worldwide meltdown has to do with the Mayan calendar that ends on this year's winter solstice December 21, 2012. There have been an unprecedented amount of prophecies, fearful predictions, and speculations concerning this upcoming date.