They say it won't happen, at least not on
Friday, but in the event the Mayan prophecy of the end of the world is right,
scientists have foretold a raft of bloody and catastrophic fates for us
all.
Dark comets, famine, super-volcanoes,
catastrophic climate change, and a plague of cancers are just some of the ends
that could fulfill the prophecy.
Astrophysicist Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell,
who discovered pulsars, believes the most likely disaster that could pencil
Doomsday into Friday's diary is a black comet.
Such an end would match that of the dinosaurs
who after walking the planet for about 165 million years - homo sapiens has been
around for a mere 200,000 years - were killed off by a 10km asteroid or comet
that slammed into the planet.
Professor Bell Burnell believes if the world
as we know it is to end on December 21 it would have to be a dark comet that
strikes.
Dark comets have little of the ice and snow
that most comets have, and a lot more dust which makes it much more difficult to
spot them as they speed through Space.
'Comets normally are big, dusty snowballs. A
dark comet has not much snow and a lot of dust. They are much harder to get a
handle on,' she said.
The collision itself, except for those near
the point of impact, would be unlikely to be fatal to the world's population but
it would throw up so much dust into the atmosphere that billions of people could
expect a slow death.
Huge quantities of dust would bring on an
'eternal winter' in which the sun would be obscured and crops around the world
would fail, leading to mass famine.
Dr Dave Rothery, a volcanologist at the Open
University, foretells a similar end but he thinks the death-bringing dust would
be put into the atmosphere by a supervolcano.
Hundreds of cubic miles of debris will be blasted into the
atmosphere if a super-volcano erupts on Friday
A dark comet or a super-volcano would put so much dust
into the atmosphere that there would be catastrophic crop failure
More than 240 cubic miles of molten rock and
debris are blasted into the sky by super-volcanoes.
Much of it would remain in the atmosphere as
volcanic dust which would, just as with a massive asteroid or comet, block out
the sun and cause famine.
'It would put so much ash and sulphur dioxide
into the atmosphere that photosynthesis may break down," he warned.
A similar, albeit less devastating, even took
place in 1816 when a volcano in Indonesia erupted and put so much dust into the
atmosphere that it became known as 'the year of no summer'.
Other scientists asked by The Times what
cataclysms could bring on the end of the world on Friday, in line with what many
people believe is foretold by the ancient Mayan prophecy, included Bryan Lovell,
a former president of the Geological Society.
His favourite Doomsday scenario was a vast
escape of methane caused by an undersea landslide.
Methane is a greenhouse gas but it is about 20
times more powerful in warming the world than is carbon dioxide.
Dr Lovell said a huge release of sub-sea
methane deposits would accelerate man-made climate change and lead to
'catastrophic climate change not too many Fridays from now'.
But it is not just scientists who are putting
forward theories as to how the world will end and they range from the unlikely
to the fantastical.
Among the favourites is that a rogue planet,
Nibiru, which has long been inhabiting the far reaches of the solar system,
beyond even Pluto, is now on a collision course with Earth.
Scientists have dismissed the theory as
ridiculous not just because no one has ever managed to detect it in the outer
reaches of the solar system but because if such a large object was heading this
way it would have been spotted by now
Scepticism on the part of experts, however,
has done little to diminish the determination of thousands of people to find a
safe haven from disaster.
Authorities have closed off the French village of Bugarach
and its mountain in France as Doomsday devotees sought sanctuary there from the
end of the world.
In France the authorities have had to bar New
Age followers from travelling to Bugarach, a tiny village home to fewer than 200
people, and the 'mystical mountain' where it is located.
Doomsday fanatics have identified Bugarach as
a place of safety on the grounds that aliens live hidden within the mountain and
are waiting for the end of the world when they will rescue humans in the
area.
'I have issued an order barring anyone from
climbing the mountain. And those trying to get into the village will be stopped
and asked what their business is,' said Regional prefect Eric
Freysselinard.
The village and the mountain will only be re-opened to outsiders two days after the end of the world is scheduled to have taken place.
Forecasts that the world will end on Friday are based on
an ancient Mayan calendar which ends on December 12, 2012
The Doomsday prophecy is based on an ancient
calendar from the Mayan civilisation that was based in what is now Guatemala in
in Central America.
The calendar lasts for more than 5,000 years
but comes to an end on Friday, which has prompted fears it forecasts the end of
the world.
Other favourite Doomsday scenarios include a
vast solar storm which will flare out from the Sun and engulf the
Earth.
An alternative doom-laden theory is that a
rogue black hole will swallow up the Earth, or that a quirk of galactic
alignments will trigger a disastrous reversal of the Earth's magnetic
field.
Vivienne Parry, a former presenter of
Tomorrow's World, suggested a cancer that starts in foxes but can be transmitted
to humans.
Man's best friend? A plague of cancers passed from foxes
to people via dogs is one way the world could end.
Dogs, she suggested, would cease to be man's
best friend and instead become man's worst enemy because the cancer would be
transmitted through them.
Foxes would bite the dogs, transmitting the
cancer to them, and they would bite their human owners.
She said that were all dogs to be destroyed as
soon as people realised they were passing on an untreatable cancer the end of
the world for humans could be postponed.
But she suspects man's love of his canine
companions would seal his fate because putting down every dog would be too much
to ask.
source
