Astronomy: What WILL happen on December 21, 2012

Although there is plenty of speculation going around about what will happen on Earth, the movements of astronomical objects are far more predictable, even moreso than clockwork.

In a detailed yet readable 28-page article entitled The Actual Astronomy of 2012, author Thomas Razzeto explains what would be visible in the sky on December 21, 2012, above where the Mayan Priests lived, near Izapa:

What Will Happen on December 21, 2012

Venus will start things off by rising above the horizon at 4:46 AM. It will be extremely easy to see in the black predawn sky and it will lead the sacred tree on its journey across the sky throughout this special day. The fact that Venus will rise before the sun should not be taken lightly with regards to the question of why the Maya picked 2012. Jim Reed, editor of the Institute of Maya Studies’s newsletter, said:

I think it is important that they chose a date of a winter solstice and a
winter solstice when Venus would rise up before the sun. Venus is there
to witness the rebirth.

Yes, of course the Maya would have had a vision that included the planets, especially Venus, which they tracked with a very precise calendar. The Maya were so concerned about Venus that they could even predict when it would pass as a black dot across the face of the sun. This is called a Venus transit and there will be one in June 2012.

Now, let's get back to the unfolding of the day. At 5:11 AM, the moment of the winter solstice will arrive and the sun will be reborn with the days becoming longer. Mercury will rise at 5:23 AM and it will be visible even with dawn's increasing light. It will be the second object on the sacred tree. Next, the sun will enter our world with a blaze of color at 6:29 AM to become the most important object on the sacred tree. Obviously, by this time, the sky will be so bright that both Mercury and Venus will be obscured from view but nonetheless, they will continue their journey across the sky. Pluto, which is never visible to the naked eye, will rise at 7:03 AM and finally Mars will rise at 8:24 AM, making it the last object on the sacred tree. Notice that the sun will rise 103 minutes after Venus and that Mars will rise 115 minutes after the sun. This means that the sun will be close to the middle of these two planets! (10)

A few hours later, at 10:05 AM, the center of the sun will be exactly on the galactic equator. This is the galactic alignment of 2012 and the peak of the celestial love making! This is the moment of cosmic orgasms!

The Actual Astronomy of 2012 and the Sacred Triple Rebirth of the Sun

While the last paragraph above and the article's title may seem hyperbolic, there are gems in this seemingly well-researched piece.

Here are more links related to 2012 astronomy and astronomical research related to 2012:

Understanding Maya concepts of time, by Astronomy Department, Cornell University

Nasa.gov 2012 Astronomy FAQ

Astronomical origins of Maya Calendar 2012 prophecies

To me it seems likely that the Transit of Venus in 2012 is the most obvious reason the Mayan priests would define 2012 as the end of one era. December 21, 2012 is the date of the Winter Solstice, the lowest point of the Sun in the sky, and thus the darkest day in the final year of the Mayan Calendar. Let's hope it truly is darkest right before the Dawn...

What remains much more puzzling is the reason for the beginning date of the Mayan Long Count Calendar, which occurs 5,125 years before the calendar's end, and about 2,500 years before the calendar's creation. There must have been legends about what happens when certain astronomical patterns appear, and studying the sky revealed the length of the cycle and where we are in it.

According to an article entitled 2012: End of the Fifth Sun by Will Hart, the Mayan Long Count Calendar begins with the "Birth of Venus."

The Maya conceived of time and human history as moving in cycles, small and large. While we use a single calendar to keep track of our annual solar circuit and to mark all of the important days within a year, the Maya used a variety of calendars. The array included a 365-day solar calendar; a 260-day sacred calendar and a Long Count calendar that operated something like an odometer with a zero start date. Unlike the other calendars the Long Count clocked linear time and was programmed to stop after 5,125 years elapsed.

The Long Count was begun at the onset of this current cycle, known as the 5th Sun, in 3114 BC. It will clock the required number of years to complete a full cycle of five suns on December 21, 2012. John Major Jenkins has made the case that this date corresponds to two major alignments, (one between the winter solstice sun and the galactic equator; the other an approximate one between solstice sun and galactic core) and it also completes the Great Zodiac precession cycle of 26,000 years. I am not questioning this thesis however I do wonder if that is all there is to the end of this solar cycle- the 5th Sun?

The Maya began their Long Count on what they referred to as the ‘Birth of Venus.’ Scholars have never been able to determine what the Maya were referring to and neither have alternative researchers. Nevertheless their sacred calendar, the Tzolkin, placed the synodic cycles of Venus in a central role. The 104-year ‘Venus Round’ cycle (2 Calendar Rounds of 52 years each), was a very important ceremonial event as this was the point in time when the solar and sacred calendars realigned with the cycle of Venus.

I need to insert an important numerical progression at this point to provide a basis for the rest of the article. The number thirteen was a root number for the Maya. It is both a prime number and the eighth number in the crucial Fibonacci series that is one source of the Golden Ratio, 1.618.

If we use 13 as the root of the Mayan calendar system we find the following sequence: 13, 26, 39, 52, 65, 78, 91 and 104, which are achieved by simply adding 13 to each succeeding sum. These are the key numbers in the Mayan calendrics and they have a solid scientific footing. Venus was the central component of the Mayan cosmology. It is for good reason that our nearest planetary neighbor is called earth’s sister planet. They have a phase-locked orbital cycle that is based on a 13:8 ratio. That is derived from the fact that Venus revolves around the sun 1.6 times faster than Earth so that 13 Venus revolutions is equal to 8 years.

Why is this important? By establishing Venus as the key component of the sacred calendar they automatically built the Golden Ratio (1.6) into the system since that ratio defines the difference between the two planets orbital cycles. By using 13 as the root number they also included the crucial multiples, or powers, of thirteen - 13,000 and 26,000 - or half as well as the full number of years in the precession. We see that the 5 Suns, each lasting 5,125 years, also add up to the Great Zodiacal Year.
We can break these numbers down in different ways and each will show that there was nothing arbitrary about the Mayan system. We somewhat arrogantly disdain other cultures for being superstitious until we come to the number 13 and our own irrationality surfaces. But let’s examine how deeply embedded this number - as well as 26, 52 and 91 - are in our own calendar. Our year is divided into four seasons that are demarcated by the equinoxes and solstices.

Each of the four seasons is 91 days or 13 weeks long, which gives us a year of 52 weeks. We see the key Maya 13-base numerical progression reflected in our own calendar. Half of a year is 26 weeks. It is beyond the scope of this article to delve into all of the intricacies of the Mayan calendrical and mathematical systems; they were extremely adept in these fields.

What I have uncovered during my decades of research into this topic are two crucial keys to understanding the system: the ‘Transit of Venus’ and solar output cycles. It just so happens that the 2012 end date corresponds to a Venus Transit cycle that occurs twice in the next 10 years in 2004 and then in 2012. As mentioned above Venus was central to the Mayan cosmology. The Long Count began on what the Maya call the “Birth of Venus” so it is perhaps not too surprising that it ends on a Transit of Venus.


Full online article 2012: End of the Fifth Sun by Will Hart



Here is another explanation of the reason for the origin date (interesting to note that the author of the italicized text below, Carl Johann Calleman, believes the end of this creation cycle is October 28, 2011):

The exact Long Count beginning date ultimately is calibrated based on the date of solar zenith in Izapa, which occurs on August 12. (Izapa is the ancient Mayan site in southern Mexico where the Long Count was first devised.)

This solar zenith day was since long, long before the Long Count was implemented, considered as the day of the year when “time began” and considered as a holy date in the location of Izapa. There is thus every reason to believe that the solar zenith was the reason the initial day in the Long Count, 4 Ahau 8 Cumku, was set on this day, although obviously the date of solar zenith in Izapa has nothing to do with the real beginning of the corresponding divine creation cycle. (Not to use the solar zenith date as the beginning of the Long Count would have been considered as heresy. We may make the comparison with the date of Christmas, which was taken from old solstice celebrations, and has not been changed, despite the fact that few, if any, believes that Jesus was born then).

If Calleman is correct about the reason for August 12, 3114 BC, being chosen as the commencement date for the Maya Calendar, then that puts even more emphasis on the end date being related to the upcoming 2012 Transit of Venus.

As the commencement date of the Maya Long Count Calendar is most often pegged as 3,114 BC, it is instructive to see if there were any Transits of Venus or other significant astronomical events during that year or shortly thereafter.

It turns out there were Transits of Venus in 3108 BC and 3100 BC (see historical dates of Transits of Venus), so this particular transit pair may have been perceived as the end of the era that took place before the one we are living in.

Here's a comment (from someone named Anonymous Coward...) about what happened to the Earth's climate around that time, through analysis of Indus Valley:

First I have made a time calibration: 3500 BP radiocarbon calibrated as 2200 BC, 4300 BP radiocarbon calibrated as 3100 BC (based on Schove: Sunspots plus several articles in Nature). Place: near the mouth of Kalinadi river.

Evergreen forest dropped from nearly 30% from 3100 BC to 15-20% in 2800 BC. The next drop was from nearly 20% in 2200 BC to below 10% in the next centuries. At the same time periods savanna increased from 20% to 40%, then remained at that level until 2200 BC, when there began a rapid increase, which leveled at 60% in 2 centuries. The most dramatic shifts are seen in delta(13)C: A sudden change from the level of 23 o/oo to 23.5 in 3100 BC and a rapid return to 23, and a new sudden change to 23.5 at 2200 BC and then a sharp change that eventually levels off to today´s value of 21.5 o/oo some thousand years later.

Source: GodlikeProductions.com post regarding ancient climate catastrophes


2012 prophecy and Mayan Calendar links

Transits of Venus dates from 5000 BC / BCE to 10,000 AD / CE

Worldwide climate catastrophe circa 3123 bc

Meteorites and the Mayan Long Count Calendar

Is new exoplanet Kepler 10b a "habitable" rival to Gliese 581g?

With NASA's announcement of the discovery of rocky planet Kepler 10b, the first thing that came to my mind was "is it habitable?"



NASA’s Kepler Mission is using transit photometry to determine the frequency
of Earth-sized planets in or near the habitable zone of Sun-like stars (sometimes referred to as the "Goldilocks Zone", not too hot, not too cold). The
mission reached a milestone towards meeting that goal with the discovery of its
first rocky planet, Kepler-10b.





NASA announcement of discovery of new exoplanet Kepler 10-b

NASA video explaining discovery of new planet Kepler 10b

Wikipedia page of new exoplanet Kepler 10 b

Gliese 581g Zarmina's World news roundup

Here are recent news stories and articles about the most Earth-like planet yet discovered, GJ581g, aka as Gliese 581g and Zarmina's World, named after the wife of the planet's discoverer.

BBC article on Gliese 581g, Earth-like planet

Gliese 581g discovery report Sep 2010 by Vogt et al

Scientific American article on Gliese 581g research and conclusions

Wikipedia page on Gliese 581 g Zarmina's World

MSNBC Mike Wall article on Gliese 581g as habitable planet