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Originally posted by logicalview
There is plenty of scientific reasoning behind potential 'earth changing' events.
BUT, there is no proof or hard evidence that links the end of the Mayan calender or any Mayan prophecies with any 'predicted' events in 2012.
Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati's forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011.
The race is on for better forecasting abilities, as the next peak in solar activity is expected to come around 2012. While the sun is in a lull now, activity can flare up at any moment, and severe space weather -- how severe, nobody knows -- will ramp up a year or two before the peak.
There are just so many ways the Universe is out to get us. Astronomers have already considered the threat from our Sun's orbit around the center of the Milky Way. When our Sun rises up out of flat plane of the Milky Way, it appears we might be less protected from intergalactic radiation and cosmic rays. Well, it looks like passing through the middle of the galactic plane might have its own share of risks: an increased number of comets might be hurled towards the Earth because of gravitational interaction with the densest parts of our galaxy.
Will Earth pass through the Milky Way's galactic plane in 2012? And if so, what could that mean to Earth?
Much ado has been made of the winter solstice sun aligning with the galactic plane on December 21, 2012. But according to the computational wizard Jean Meeus (page 302 of Mathematical Astronomy Morsels), the solstice points were alignment with the galactic equator as recently as the year 1998.
In other words, the 2012 alignment isn't unique. Consider the view from our local star, the sun. As seen from the sun, Earth crosses the Milky Way's galactic plane (also called the galactic equator) twice a year, every year.