2012 Blog » Asteroids

SHTF vs EOTW vs TEOTWAWKI

Robert Bast — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:15:48 +0000

This isn’t just a 2012 problem – in newspapers and tabloid television, “experts” can find it easy to dismiss a topic by misrepresenting it and then debunking it. This is unfortunate because most of the public learns about conspiracy-type topics from these experts. Let’s take a little look at how 2012 is misrepresented in popular media:

Nomenclature

In interviews I almost always get introduced in the same manner – Robert Bast, who believes the world will end in 2012. And every time I correct their sensationalism – I think the end of the world, as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) could occur in 2012.

It really is a double-edged sword. Most 2012ers are preparing to survive or become light-beings or ascend. None of these are the end of the world (EOTW), in which everything ends. Yet the media uses EOTW. And the experts drolly state “the Maya only believe in cycles, not an end“. Misrepresentation has 2012ers looking like idiots, and the message is lost.

For example, this letter and response yesterday at the Memphis Flyer:

Reader: Maybe an economic meltdown, maybe global warming or a new ice age, maybe the supervolcano in Yellowstone Park, or a comet, or something.

Columnist: As long as people have been people, they’ve been convinced the world was about to end. It hasn’t ended yet.

That is a common response – every end of the world prophecy so far has failed to come true, because we are still here. Which is why smart 2012ers don’t say EOTW or TEOTWAWKI – they say Shit Hits The Fan (SHTF). It’s an acknowledgement of the variety of tragedies that can occur, and that our preparations should be as all-encompassing as they can be. People can relate to SHTF, it can be anything from losing your job, to gang warfare in your neighborhood, to a hurricane, to a global cataclysm. It’s just a shame that Americans are so uncomfortable using the word shit.

Comets and Asteroids and Planet X / Nibiru

A comet striking Earth or flying close by in 2012 is a genuine possibility. While the scientific threat is a constant one, the return of a comet is pretty much the only catastrophe that an ancient culture could have predicted for a certain date. NASA cannot tell us with certainty that no comet is heading our way – a doomsday comet might only be spotted months before collision, and a dark comet might not be spotted at all.

Yet in popular media, the comet threat is ignored. You might hear great detail about how NASA has spotted every meaningful asteroid, and how Planet X isn’t real, but they conveniently do not discuss comets. Lately Comet Elenin has been discussed, but only that specific comet which is clearly not coming anywhere near our planet.

LHC – Large Hadron Collider

This is pretty much the only 2012 topic which warrants EOTW. According to some, the Large Hadron Collider experiments could create a black hole that rapidly grows and erases our planet from existence. End of the World.

SHTF vs EOTW vs TEOTWAWKI is a post from: 2012 Blog

New Comet, New Asteroid

Robert Bast — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 08:35:38 +0000

The comet was discovered by Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS 1 telescope which scans areas of the sky for dangerous asteroids. It is early days, but they estimate that:

The comet will likely come within about 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) of the sun in February or March 2013 — about the same distance as the planet Mercury, researchers said.

During its closest approach to Earth in two years, comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) likely to be visible low in the western sky shortly after sunset, weather permitting.

…”The comet has an orbit that is close to parabolic, meaning that this may be the first time it will ever come close to the sun, and that it may never return,” said the University of Hawaii’s Richard Wainscoat in a statement.

The close to parabolic orbit means that this could actually be a long period comet, one that an ancient culture might have tracked previously. February/March 2013 is very close to Dec 21 2012, given that predicting the return of long period comets is very a difficult task. It can’t be the return of Comet Caesar, as that comet was visible in a different part of the sky, during the middle of the day.

Meanwhile:

A newly discovered house-sized asteroid will miss the Earth by less than 17,700 km (11,000 miles) on Monday June 27, 2011. That’s about 23 times closer than the Moon. The size and location of the asteroid, named 2011 MD, should allow observers in certain locations to take a look at the space rock, even with small telescopes. It’s closest approach will be at 13:26 UTC on June 27.

The estimated size is between 9 to 45 meters, just under the 50 meter limit, where any asteroids of that size or less are expected to completely burn up and disintegrate should they enter our atomosphere. Over 50 meters is a real threat.

Two days warning. If it was a larger asteroid, heading for where you live, would you be able to escape? This is one of the many reasons to have your plans made ahead of time.

New Comet, New Asteroid is a post from: 2012 Blog

Rapid Magnetic Changes / Houston Dome / Another Tunguska

Robert Bast — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:07:37 +0000

“a new study of ancient copper mines in southern Israel found that the strength of the magnetic field could double and then fall back down in less than 20 years.” This could be local, or global, they don’t seem sure. But it is certainly something scientists previously did not believe possible.

Why build bunkers when you can protect an entire city with a massive dome?

The concept would supposedly keep the city safe from a category-5 hurricane.

Tunguska was not the only explosion of its type last century – there’s actually a list of them at Wikipedia. A good candidate to add to that list is a powerful blast that struck British Guyana in 1935. An expedition “reported seeing an area some miles across where the trees had been broken off about 25 feet above their bases“, while numerous people witnessed a “large meteoroid/small asteroid entry“. One day a town or city will be the victim, and we can’t stop it. Hopefully 2012 will not be a time where these events become commonplace.

Rapid Magnetic Changes / Houston Dome / Another Tunguska is a post from: 2012 Blog

New Sinkhole / John Perkins / Asteroid Satellite

Robert Bast — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:05:54 +0000

This time the sinkhole is in Germany, measuring 30 meters across, and 20 meters deep. Six houses were evacuated. Photo over at a News Corp site.

Author John Perkins (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) has posted his thoughts on 2012 at the Huffington Post. He explains how the 2012 meme has become, proven by his numerous forthcoming speaking engagements, a “tidal wave of change that is flooding human consciousness“. And he quantifies his positive thoughts by referring to how the Popul Vuh describes how “people overthrow an egotistical regime characterized by exploitation and deception and replace it with an enlightened and compassionate one“.

The Association of Space Explorers, has prepared a report on the threat asteroids pose for Planet Earth. The UN is studying the report, which includes plans to detect and deflect any objects in space that might threaten us. The Canadian Space Agency plans to launch a $15-million suitcase-sized satellite next March. They expect NEOSSat will find hundreds of asteroids hiding close to the sun, and will also help prevent collisions between our own satellites.

New Sinkhole / John Perkins / Asteroid Satellite is a post from: 2012 Blog

Meteoroid Tracking / New 2012 Drink / Missing Sunspots

Robert Bast — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 11:41:12 +0000

NASA is installing a network of smart cameras across the USA to track fireballs and meteoroids. Soon there will be 15, and then they plan to expand nationwide. These cameras are automated and linked together so that they can triangulate paths and orbits. If NASA was expecting an influx of fireballs (and alternative media outlets are suggesting this is already happening), such data could prove to be important. But it could just be that NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office is wanting to he more helpful when they get phone calls from the public. More info at PhysOrg, and the official NASA site has live and historical images from the cameras.

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According to the website of Australia’s antidote to “energy drinks”, esc, if you are concerned about 2012, their drink will let you Escape into a zen state of mind!

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The latest in a long line of solar cycle theories has just been published in Nature. NASA have summarised the findings. While it seems to account for the last minimum, I figure it will take accurate predictions for the next few cycles to be proven – and they don’t seem to have even made any predictions about the next maximum.

Meteoroid Tracking / New 2012 Drink / Missing Sunspots is a post from: 2012 Blog

The Royal Society Laughs at 2012

Robert Bast — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 03:21:25 +0000

A few days ago, the highly-regarded Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell gave a Royal Society lecture about the sham that is 2012. You can watch it online:

http://royalsociety.org/The-end-of-the-world-in-2012/

Now for some criticisms!

You have to wonder about a scientist who doesn’t understand how search engines work, yet we should trust her skills in analyzing the 2012 meme. Seven minutes into the lecture Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell tells us that there are 56 million Google results when she searches for end of the world in 2012, and the audience laughs. There aren’t, merely 56 million web pages that contain all of those words, somewhere on the page. Any professor should be smart enough to estimate that 56 million people have not made websites about 2012.

Searching for:
“end of the world” 2012
yields just 1.7 million results. Of these 95% or more will be computer-generated spam. Real websites with original content about 2012 probably number around one thousand. Not nearly as interesting or attention grabbing.

I guess you would call this reverse-scaremongering, where smug Royal Society devotees marvel at how many 2012 idiots there must be out there.

Of course she picks on the wackiest 2012 theories, which are the easiest to poke fun at. Yet she does not mention any of the websites where she found the wacky theories, so that people can make their own decisions. If those websites even exist…

For example she dismisses the theory of a 2012 planetary alignments. If you do a Google search for this, you won’t find any websites describing a planetary alignment in 2012, which makes sense, for there won’t be such an alignment and it would be hard to prove otherwise. This would explain why she does not have a slide showing this purported alignment theory. Could it be it is the professor who is confused, or that she has deliberately ignored the topic of a galactic alignment in 2012.

Another wacky theory she picks on, where I am unaware of any serious website making such claims, is that we will be sucked into the black hole at the galactic center.

Her science is also narrow-minded and out-of-date. Recent research suggests the magnetic poles might reverse rapidly, but she only mentions the old estimate of 5,000 years. Professor Bell Burnell gives lots of great detail about asteroids, yet fails to mention comets – comets are more likely to remain undetected until too late, and could have been predicted by ancient cultures.

This intention of this post is not to pick on this particular professor. It is because it saddens me that so many very intelligent, well-regarded scientists have approached the 2012 meme in such a biased way, with no intentions to fully investigate the possibilities. They find the aspects of 2012 that are the easiest to dismiss, but avoid the difficult ones. I was really hoping an audience member would ask “what about comets?”, but alas, it was not to be.

The Royal Society Laughs at 2012 is a post from: 2012 Blog

Noah’s Ark / Facebook Game / Bolide Data

Robert Bast — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 07:12:45 +0000

With state-funding, a Christian ministry will build a $150 million theme park, featuring a full-size Noah’s Ark, complete with live animals. There will also be a Tower of Babel. Can’t wait to take my family, and it is aiming to open in 2014.

Those 500 million Facebook users now have access to a game all about 2012 – War of 2012. After a magnetic pole shift and solar flares, you are a member of “a tribe that happened to survive the pandemonium aboard the Genesis Ark“. Apart from the back story and the name, it is yet another Civilization clone… Far more interesting would be a prepping game where you have 2012-like deadline to prepare.

Tunguska-like atmospheric explosions occur several times a year, and we know this because NASA satellites spot them. Data on these “bolide” will soon be released so that scientists worldwide can better study them.

Noah’s Ark / Facebook Game / Bolide Data is a post from: 2012 Blog

That Unacknowledged Asteroid

Robert Bast — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 01:15:51 +0000

Imagine if you had spotted an asteroid or comet hurtling toward Earth. Or that you became aware of such via the Interweb. It would be very useful to calculate how the collision will affect you, where you are.

In case that unlikely scenario arises, here’s some software that promises to calculate the harm you face.

Lest you be unsatisfied with a simulation of a massive rock barreling down on us, the Web site also provides data on the aftermath, including the size of the crater, the extent of the fireball, and even the height of the tsunami wave, should the object crash into the ocean.

That Unacknowledged Asteroid is a post from: 2012 Blog

Cosmic Rays / Sting / Asteroid in 2182

Robert Bast — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 12:15:26 +0000

A neutrino observatory consisting of strings of detectors buried deep in Antarctic ice has confirmed that more cosmic rays arrive from some parts of the sky than others, something already observed in the northern hemisphere
BBC movie show Talking Movies has an interview with Sting about the new 2012 doco called 2012: Time For Change
Spanish asteroid trackers estimate that asteroid 1999 RQ36 has a chance in 1,000 of crashing into our planet in the year 2182. NASA says 1 in 3,570. At over 500 metres in width, the impact would be catastrophic. Still, you’d expect we’d be able to shift the path of an asteroid by then…

Cosmic Rays / Sting / Asteroid in 2182 is a post from: 2012 Blog

Protecting Earth: Governments Finally Getting Serious

Robert Bast — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:21:38 +0000

The timing could be better, because Dec 2012 is only 2.5 years away, but better late than never!

Last month, Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA) introduced the new bill before Congress, H.R. 5587, titled: “To establish a United States Commission on Planetary Defense and for other purposes.”

The commission will investigate the role of the United States in identifying NEOs (Near-Earth Objects), and their capabilities for neutralising any potential impacts. The budget is a pitiful $2 million, and has me wondering why Congress is even needed to debate the worthiness of it. Most scientists working in this field would tell you that there is no doubt about what is required – a huge amount of money to be spent ASAP. We have the capability to protect our planet, and so far we are sitting on our hands…

Meanwhile over at Space Daily is a report on a meeting in Germany attended by experts from 25 countries, discussing the risks we face from our Sun:

“Imagine trying to monitor Earth’s oceans with a small number of buoys. You’d miss a lot. That’s the situation we’re in now with the ‘ocean of space,’” says Guhathakurta.

China is about to contribute a space-buoy known as “KuaFu,” named after a giant in Chinese mythology who wished to capture the sun. Kuafu will be located at the L1 Lagrange point where it will sample the solar wind upstream from Earth.

“We’re putting KuaFu at a strategic point in space,” says Wu. “The solar wind at L1 is an important input to many science models of the sun-Earth interaction.”

When KuaFu launches it will join a growing international fleet of spacecraft dedicated to heliophysics. NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, JAXA and China are all making significant contributions.

And just in time…

If forecasters are correct, the solar cycle will peak during the years around 2013. And while it probably won’t be the biggest peak on record, human society has never been more vulnerable.

The basics of daily life-from communications to weather forecasting to financial services-depend on satellites and high-tech electronics. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences warned that a century-class solar storm could cause billions in economic damage.

Preparing for a “solar Katrina,” launching a new science, harnessing the talents of scientists around the globe: “These are just a few of our goals for this week’s meeting,” says Guhathakurta.

As outlined in the bill, the purposes of the commission would be to:

Determine capabilities of United States Government entities, nongovernment organizations, foreign governments and entities, and international bodies to detect, characterize, and neutralize potentially dangerous Near Earth Objects;
Identify and evaluate roles and responsibilities of United States Government entities to detect, characterize, and neutralize potentially dangerous NEOs;
Determine United States effectiveness in leading international efforts to detect, characterize, and neutralize potentially dangerous NEOs;
Build upon United States Government and foreign analyses, studies, and assessments, without duplicating efforts, to determine current and required NEO characterization and mitigation capabilities;
Identify and report on technology development required to provide effective planetary defense from dangerous NEOs; and
Investigate and report to the President and Congress on its findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures that can be taken to provide planetary defense.

Meanwhile at New Scientist (June 23, 2010), Russian scientists figure that solar storms could affect some previously un-thought-of human activities. Even a minor storm could cause railway signals to go haywire, and oil pipelines to rust so much that they may leak – especially when you get closer to the poles, regions which have less protection from the Sun.

Relatively minor space storms now appear to be behind a range of mysterious mishaps – railway signals malfunctioning in Archangel province in north-western Russia, for example, between 2000 and 2005. A study led by Eugenia Eroshenko of the Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation in Troitsk, Russia, examined episodes when signals turned red for minutes or even hours though the track ahead was clear, then spontaneously reverted to green.

Eroshenko’s team found that 16 malfunctions of this sort observed between 2000 and 2005 coincided with space storms (Advances in Space Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2010.05.017). “We were surprised by such a clear correlation,” Eroshenko says

Protecting Earth: Governments Finally Getting Serious is a post from: 2012 Blog