Softpedia
 

NEWS CATEGORIES:



NEWS ARCHIVE >>
SOFTPEDIA REVIEWS >>
MEET THE EDITORS >>
Home > News > Science > Sci Pry

August 8th, 2011, 13:20 GMT · By

No End of the World Scheduled for 2012, Sorry

SHARE:

Adjust text size:


The world will not be destroyed in 2012 by Nibiru or Nemesis
Enlarge picture
According to the conclusions of the latest scientific study on the issue, there is no Death Star-type celestial object skimming the outskirts of our solar system, ready to annihilate our planet in 2012.

There are currently no documented instances in which a research was able to identify any type of discernible threat of this magnitude. Those who argue that the planet is real, and that it is capable fo hurtling asteroids to the inner solar system have absolutely no proof of this.

While it is true that some researchers did propose the existence of such a star, called Nemesis, people who argue that the world is about to end fail to take into account the reasons for this proposals.

When it first appeared, the idea that Nemesis is real was put together in order to explain what experts referred to as the periodicity of mass extinctions on Earth. In other words, after analyzing the intervals at which the five known great extinction events took place, these scientists thought they saw a pattern.

However, not even to this day was anyone ever capable of producing the slightest shred of evidence that Nemesis is orbiting in the Oort Cloud of comets, many astronomical units (AU) away from the Sun. An AU is the mean distance between the Sun and Earth, about 93 million miles.

The thinking among Nemesis proponents is that the object is orbiting very far away from the Sun, but is somehow sufficiently large to nudge comets off-course. The object is believed to be responsible for the comets that are periodically sent to the inner solar system from the clouds.

The new study indicates that the patterns these individuals refer to are simple statistical artifacts, rather than a solid link. “There is a tendency for people to find patterns in nature that do not exist,” explains Coryn Bailer-Jones, the researcher who authored the new research.

“Unfortunately, in certain situations traditional statistics plays to that particular weakness, the expert says in a statement quoted by Space. He holds an appointment at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.

Bailer-Jones used a statistical tool known as Bayesian analysis to study the rate at which mass extinction events occurred over the past 250 million years, but was unable to discover any type of pattern that may indicate the existence of Nemesis.

Just like the conspiracy theory-proposed planet Nibiru, Nemesis appears to be the figment of people's imagination. If any of these two objects really existed – which is an astronomical impossibility – then they would have been detected long ago.

“From the crater record, there is no evidence for Nemesis. What remains is the intriguing question of whether or not impacts have become ever more frequent over the past 250 million years,” Bailor-Jones concludes.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK:

2,096 hits · 1 comment · Link to this article · Print article · Send to friend · Subscribe to news

MUST-READ RELATED ARTICLES:


The Role of Fungi in 'The Great Dying'

Earth Overdue for Space Impact

Effects of Arctic Melt Are Beginning to Show

Age of Dinosaurs Ended Abruptly

Evolution Turned Mosasaurs into an Awesome Predator

READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: OmniOminous on 08 Aug 2011, 19:25 UTC reply to this comment

God bless whoever typed this up. Every other day on YouTube, some new idiot is mongering some clearly Photoshopped abortions as "Proof" of the existence of Nibiru/Nemesis/Whatever.
I would like to add my 2 cents worth:
The current belief that these objects, most especially Nibiru, are following an orbit (every 3600 yrs, for God's sake!) can be disproved with two little words:
Escape Velocity.
For a Nibiru-sized object to enter the system, raise hell and then bugger off every 3600 yrs, it would need to move at a speed approaching that of light to escape the Sun's gravity. I seriously doubt Earth or any other heavenly body would have survived the wake of such a passage. Seriously.

Copyright © 2001-2012 Softpedia. Contact/Tip us at

WindowsGamesDriversMacLinuxScriptsMobileHandheldNews

SUBMIT PROGRAM   |   ADVERTISE   |   GET HELP   |   SEND US FEEDBACK   |   RSS FEEDS   |   UPDATE YOUR SOFTWARE   |   ROMANIAN FORUM