Do You Believe December 21, 2012 Is The End Of The World ???

[bOnO]

The world should end when the sun explodes, i.e. in millions of years...

[Pinky]

The world should end when the sun explodes, i.e. in millions of years...

The Sun will never explode, only much more massive stars terminate their life in a supernova.
Our Sun has enough hydrogen "fuel" left for about 5 billion years of normal life. However, the Sun's luminosity will steadily increase in the future. This will yield increasing temperatures on the surface of our Earth. At some point the surface temperatures will so high that a runaway greenhouse process starts which will finally evaporate all surface water. After that Earth will look like present Venus, i.e. pretty much inhabitable. However, Mars should be pretty nice by then, so we can move there.

After the Sun has burned almost all of her core hydrogen, it will evolve into a red giant and some hundredths of million years later into an AGB star. At that time the Sun will be as large as the current Earth orbit. However, it will only have about 60% of its todays mass left which shifts the Earth's orbit farther outwards. While Mercury and Venus will we "eaten" up by the expanding solar envelope, Earth (and Mars) will probably escape destruction. During the AGB phase the Sun completely loses her outer envelope due to a strong stellar wind (perhaps creating a nice planetary nebula in the process). Finally all what will be left is the inner core of the Sun (called a white dwarf then). Earth and Mars will probably survive all that. However, their atmospheres will most likely be gone by that time, leaving only some large pieces of rock revolving around a very hot white dwarf.
This is basically the terminal stage of our solar system, unless "The End Of The World" means the end of the universe which is a totally different story...

[Calypto]

So global warming is a hoax after all.

Problem, priusfags?

[bOnO]

Wow you study Physics? Your explanations are interesting, thanks.

[Calypto]

<3 hummers, Lamborghinis, SUVs

Edit:
Another thing I have to contribute about global warming: since our children's futures may be affected by the emissions of cars, we should also remove the sun from our solar system so we would not need to face climate change on the planet.

[JohnnyMetal]

There is a Sumerian legend, that says that there is a planet called Nibiru, where some extraterrestrial mates live in. Nibiru is also mentioned in Maya and egyptian culture.
Nibiru was never discovered by our people cause it has a very long orbit (3600 years) and also its completely different from the other planets orbits, but it gets very close to earth each 3600 years.
You may ask what all this has about 12.21.12...... well, the thing is that the last time Nibiruwas near earth was exactly 3600 years ago, and its passage always (by sumerians escritures) had relactions with global problems..... last time it was the great diluvie... but thats another story

Edit: Nibiru is also called The Planet X.
Edit 2: theres a great story about the diluvie in sumerian escritures, if someone would want to know it just call me

[Pinky]

Nibiru was never discovered by our people cause it has a very long orbit (3600 years) and also its completely different from the other planets orbits, but it gets very close to earth each 3600 years.

Poor extraterrestrial mates who live on that planet - so far away from the Sun for a long time would mean it's a veeeery cold planet.
Anyway, a planet with such an orbit is extremely unlikely because its very unstable. Considering that the planet only comes close the Sun every 3600 years and must be far out in the Solar System for the rest of its orbit (because we can't see it) means the orbit must be highly eccentric. There are some objects in the Solar System with very eccentric orbits (mostly comets) but none with such a high eccentricity. Such an orbit would indicate that the planet can easily be scattered out of the Solar System (as it happens frequently with comets) or can hit other planets because it crosses many of their orbits, thereby increasing the probability of a collision. That means that during the time our Solar System existed (4.5 billion years) that planet would have already left our Solar System or collided with another planet.
However, even IF that planet would still exist it must already be near the inner Solar System (because it needs to arrive in December) which means we would see it by now...

* I'm no Astrophysicist, so I can't say whether the gravitational pull involved with all those planets lining up will change things permanently - but there are many who believe it will be strong enough to do some serious damage.

* Comparing what the moon's gravity does to the ocean tides on this hot rock we call Earth, and knowing that the sun's gravity has all those huge planets within it's grasp - isn't it foreseeable that many other planets and systems have the same properties?

I'm an astrophysicist so I can add a few thoughts here
First of all, despite the common myth, there will be no planet line-up in December this year. Furthermore, the possibility that all planets are lined up in one straight line is zero. This is due to the different orbital inclinations of the planets, i.e. each planetary orbit is tilted slightly with respect to the Earth's orbit - see for example Pluto for an extreme case. If we would define a planetary line-up as all planets having the same right ascension with respect to the Sun, then such an alignment is possible but very rare. In fact, it would only occur once in 180 trillion years.

However, even if all planets would lie in one straight line, its gravitational effects on the Earth would be very small. This is simply due to the fact that almost 99.9% of all the mass within the Solar System is contained in the Sun. Even the "huge" planet Jupiter is just a tiny ant compared to the Sun. The only reason the Moon has an effect on the tides of Earth is because it is so close to us. Jupiter is even far more away from Earth than the Earth from the Sun, i.e. the gravitational impact of the Sun on our planet is orders of magnitudes larger than that of Jupiter.

[JohnnyMetal]

However, even IF that planet would still exist it must already be near the inner Solar System (because it needs to arrive in December) which means we would see it by now...

Yes, there are many theories that Google censures Google Sky where it should be for we not to be able to see it

[Azarael]

However, even IF that planet would still exist it must already be near the inner Solar System (because it needs to arrive in December) which means we would see it by now...

Yes, there are many theories that Google censures Google Sky where it should be for we not to be able to see it

lol tinfoil hats

Set up a telescope.

[Pinky]

Aside from any other end of days beliefs: the Galactic Equator Alignment & Gamma Rays from the Dark Rift thing has me thinking

hmm... I somehow guess those people have no idea what the Galactic Equator is
The Equator is defined in the Galactic coordinate system as having a galactic latitude of zero (just like the Earth's equator). The origin of the Galactic coordinate system, though, is hardwired to the Sun, i.e. the Sun has by definition always a latitude of zero. It is therefore impossible for the Sun to "cross" the equator
Maybe instead of the Galactic Equator they mean the galactic disc. Fortunately our Sun is located slightly above the central disk because otherwise we wouldn't be able to see very much from the universe. In principle it is possible that the Sun crosses the galactic disc. However, in reality the Sun is moving in the opposite direction, that means it is slowly traveling "upwards" away from the disc center.

I should start stockpiling food and build a lead lined underground bunker to block the gamma radiation! With redundant water/air conditioning/filtration systems running off solar panels just to try and survive the extreme heat predicted.

Thats always a good idea! To simplify the construction you should acquire a deep abandoned mine shaft. But you should leave the solar panels aside. With all the dust storms you mentioned they won't be very effective. They would also be very easily destroyed by the intense gamma radiation from the Dark Rift. Instead you should construct a fusion reactor or - even better - a Zero Point Module as a reliable and long-lasting power source!