Will our solar system pass through the galactic plane in 2012? causing mass extinction of all life on earth?

Question

Is this true or just another hoax? Please tell me its a hoax.... Im only young and have hardly had a chance to live.....

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

There is such a thing as a "galactic plane" if one is describing that as synonymous with "galactic equator." At this time, the sun is several light years off of the galactic plane, which I suppose would be the plane inscribed by what we believe to be the galactic equator. At the rate the solar system is orbiting the center of the galaxy and the degree of inclination, I calculated once how long it would take us to cross it. I can't remember right now, but it was at least in the tens of thousands of years.

The facts which are the basis of this claim are obviously misunderstood by those you got your information from. On Dec. 21, 2012, the sun, from the earth's point of view, will cross the line of the galactic equator on our celestial sphere. It crosses this line twice a year, on the same two dates. It crosses that line *every* Dec. 21. By the way, where the ecliptic, (apparent path of the sun through the celestial background), intersects the galactic equator is fairly close to where we believe the galactic center is. This is insignificant, though, as we are only talking about the apparent alignment of things here. The galactic center is over 20,000 light years away.

So the answer is no. All the doom stuff you heard is bunk.

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

Thanks a lot. Sometimes its hard for one to see that these could be lies. As there is prophecy upon scientific jibberish, that you start to wonder and if you just look around the world today Natural disasters seem to be popping up everywhere. But i think this is down to global warming, Thanks again!

Answer 2

Our solar system passes through the galactic plane every 30 million years or so, without any bad effects---the average density of matter at the exact galactic plane is not much higher than the space a couple lightyears on either side of it.

The speed of the Solar System is about 30 kilometers per second. That's about 10 lightyears motion in a million years. The dense part of the galactic plane is about 200 lightyears thick. At present, we are fairly close to the galactic midplane, but it's hard to locate it with an accuracy better than 5 lightyears. So the date at which we pass through the plane is known within an error of a half million years or so. Anyone who claims it wil happen in 2012 doesn't know what they're talking about.

Answer 3

The galactic plane isn't a physical thing we pass through, it's just a line where we separate the top and bottom of the galaxy. The same way we have a line separating the top and bottom of the solar system, and we pass through that twice a year. There's nothing magical about it.
We don't know enough about the shape of the galaxy to define exactly WHERE the plane is, so there's no way anyone can predict the exact day we will pass through. And the increased danger of being in the plane from cometary impact that someone mentioned is actually an increased danger for several million years, not one day. There's certainly no reason for you to think we would get hit by something on one day of your life and not another, the length of your lifetime is nothing compared to how long it takes us to move through the densest part of the disk.

Answer 4

there is no such thing as a galactic plane.

the theory says that since the black hole at the center of the galaxy spins its gravity is strongest at the plane of our galaxy. they are forgetting 2 things.

1. our galaxy isnt centered on the black hole. the black hole is just at the center because gravity forced it there. in other words, our galaxy doesnt orbit around the black hole, our galaxy orbits around its center of mass where a black hole also exists.

2. gravity cannot, under any circumstances flatten out into a disk. our galaxy is a disk because centrifugal force flattened it. if your 50,000 light years from the center of the galaxy the pull on you is always going to be the same, no matter where you are in related to the actual disk of the galaxy.

Answer 5

Relax. We are still a few thousand years from passing through the galactic plane, and when we do, disaster is by no means guaranteed.

You might want to know how passing through the GP increases the chance of a major event on earth.
1. The galactic plane has a higher density of stars, dust and gas. These may disrupt some of the comets in the Oort Cloud, sending them into the inner solar system. This increases the chance that one of them will impact the earth, but the odds are still several million to one, that an impact will occur in any given year.

2. The gas and dust may block enough sunlight to cool the earth slightly, perhaps causing an ice age in the far northern and southern areas closer to the poles.

3. Being nearer other stars, increases the risk of being adversely affected by a local nova or supernova. One may be responsible for the disappearance of the wooly mammoths, rhinoceroses, and horses in North America, about 10,000 BCE.

Now, if you insist on worrying about catastrophes in the near future, worry about global warming, global climate change, and the end of cheap oil. The processes are already in motion, and people are doing much to little to avert certain catastrophe. In part, this is because they are too busy worrying about the more remote causes of the end days like 2012, the Mayan Calendar, UFOs, and the second coming of Jesus.

If you are young, and haven't really had a chance to live, then learn how to survive in a much changed world, and stop wasting time with nonsense. Grow your own food, make your own clothes, and build a wealth of knowledge to see you through the coming dark ages.

Answer 6

You're asking this on a science board, so let's walk through it, okay? What is the galactic plane? An imaginary line dividing the 'northern' half of the galaxy from the 'southern' half. How can crossing an imaginary line do any harm at all to life on earth? The equator is a similar line. Does it have the power to kill? Neither does the galactic plane. Relax. this story has less credibility than the Y2K scare.

Answer 7

Yeah, it's just a hoax.

What does "galactic plane" even mean? The galaxy isn't a perfectly flat structure, so where do you define this "plane"? If we could somehow pinpoint it to a single location, and we knew we were heading for it, it would be no different from moving between the North and South hemispheres on Earth. What changes? Your location, nothing else

Answer 8

do you believe everything you see on cartoons are real, too?

calling this a hoax does disservice to real hoaxs... the piltdown man, the cardiff giant and that cool moon hoax were the guy claimed to make a telescope so big it could see moon men cavorting like sea monkeys. THOSE were real hoaxes.

all the 2012 crap barely qualifies as a retelling of the Boogie Man scare stories.

Answer 9

HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how do people think up these ridiculous things?!? honestly, i'm sick of hearing this 2012 end of the world, mass extinction, apocalypse, mayan calendar poop. my guess is that if there were a mass extinction, it would be due to a global pandemic. (think I Am Legend). i heard that, possibly, in the future, AIDS may mutate and become airborne. then we'd all be screwed.

Source(s):

still don't know my score... oh wait! yeah i do! it's like 100 or higher.

Answer 10

No it is not true, we will not pass through the galactic plane in 2012. And no, it is not true, passing through the galactic plane does not bing death or any other dangerous thing.
Where the heck do people get all these nonsense stories from anyway?

Answer 11

Glactic planes, Planet X, reversal of magnetic poles; why don't we just hold our breaths until we turn blue and die? It is all baseless garbage; ask whomever is feeding you this stuff to provide factual evidence rather then innuendo and hyperbole.

Answer 12

no..