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ReprintPrint Email Font Resize NASA scientist attributes 2012 doomsday scenarios to Hollywood, hoaxers and hucksters

The world is coming to an end. In, like, 4 billion or 5 billion years. The sun will get old and cranky and eventually immolate the entire planet. The world, however, is not coming to an end on Dec. 21, 2012, contrary to the viral Internet rumor propounded by pseudo-scientists, hoaxers and Hollywood movie promoters. The notion that 2012 heralds the End of Time has something to do with a mysterious Planet X that will supposedly hurtle into, or perhaps merely perturb, Earth. Also, there might be geomagnetic storms, a Pole Reversal and a newfound unsteadiness in the planet's crustal plates. All of that, or variations thereof, can be studied in depth in scores of books now jostling for eschatological primacy with such titles as "Apocalypse 2012," "The World Cataclysm in 2012" and "How to Survive 2012." This is no joke to David Morrison, senior scientist for NASA's Astrobiology Institute. He's counted 200 different books for sale about 2012. As the a
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NASA Eyes Category 4 Hurricane Felicia And A Stubborn Enrique

Felicia is the storm that rules the Eastern Pacific Ocean this week, but Enrique refuses to give up. Felicia is a major hurricane with sustained winds near 140 mph, and Enrique is still hanging onto tropical storm status with 50 mph sustained winds. Both cyclones are close to each other and two NASA satellites captured them together. On August 6 at 5 a.m. EDT, powerful Felicia is still a category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale. She's far out to sea, about 1,480 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California near 15.5 north and 131.2 west. She's moving west-northwest near 10 mph, and is expected to speed up and start to weaken in the next couple of days because of colder waters in her path. Felicia's minimum central pressure is 937 millibars. Boys can be stubborn, and Enrique is proving that, even though he's a tropical storm with a boy's name. Despite Enrique's close proximity to Felicia, he's maintaining sustained winds ne
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Nasa telescope passes planet test

The planet orbits very close to its parent star A Nasa space observatory launched in March this year has observed a planet circling another star. In a test of its capability, the orbiting Kepler telescope detected the planet's atmosphere. Kepler will survey our region of the Milky Way for Earth-sized planets which might be capable of supporting life. The telescopes first findings are based on 10 days of data collected before the start of official science operations. The results have been published in the journal Science. The observations are of a planet called HAT-P-7, known to transit a star located about 1,000 light-years from Earth. This distant world orbits its star in just 2.2 days and is 26 times closer than Earth is to the Sun. The light curve from the planet reveals that its atmosphere has a day-side temperature of about 2,377C (4,310F). "This early result shows the Kepler detection system is performing right on the mark," said David Koch, deputy principal investi
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