33. Mayan Astronomy Workplace Unearthed

Doomsday predictions that the world will finish on December 21, 2012 in lots of 2012 themed books, and the film 2012, are primarily based on urban myths aboutpurveyors declare that on the 2012 winter solstice the Earth, Solar, and heart of the Milky Approach galaxy will align, inflicting the Solar to eclipse the galactic middle. Moreover, doomsday purveyors claim that tidal forces from this alignment will cause severe disruptive earthquakes to finish the world, and that the same tidal forces appearing on the Sun will trigger severe solar storms devastating Earth. The planets in the solar system may also allegedly align on December 21, 2012.

In about 500 BC astronomers in the Yucatan Peninsula predicted that a outstanding event would happen some 2,500 years of their future. They thought it so significant that they constructed a posh calendar stuffed with cycles inside cycles such that all the cycles would come to an finish (and thus a new starting) at once on that day. That day is December 21, 2012, the solstice, and it’s virtually upon us. If we’ve got not achieved so already, it is time to make preparations. However not in the way many new-age pundits, with their penchant for sensationalism, would have us consider.

Remove the gnomon and use the middle of its place as the middle of a circle. Use string to attract a circle that may undergo the shadows. Discover the shortest shadow and note the time. The shadow at solar midday should be the shortest. If it is winter, this shadow is pointing north. If it is summer, the shadow is pointing south. To mark East and West, connect the top points of equal size shadows.

The Sun Will Not Eclipse the Galactic Heart : The Earth’s rotational axis tilts about 23.5 levels. The December winter solstice occurs when Earth is on the level in its orbit where the southern hemisphere most instantly factors in the direction of the Sun. The Solar is then straight overhead as seen from Earth at 23.5 degrees south latitude, the Tropic of Capricorn. The Sun can not appear additional south in the sky. To measure celestial positions, astronomers venture latitude and longitude into the sky and name them declination and right ascension.

As an inheritor of the Renaissance, Pope Urbanwas intrigued the problem of Galileo’s findings. Since God could act in mysterious ways, even a pontiff should adapt to the greater divine plan. The cardinals from Habsburg Spain tolerated no such deviations from doctrine and demanded the Vatican arrange an inquisition in opposition to the astronomer. For the previous three years, Martin has been a volunteer with Cornell’s “Curious? Ask an Astronomer” service, a Web page founded by astronomy graduate students in 1997. The irony, maybe, is that the upcoming solstice-galaxy alignment was first talked about again in 1969 in Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend’s groundbreaking e book Hamlet’s Mill.