Is it true that Maya Calender ends on december 21 1983 and it’s when there will be some kind of huge eclipse? Like 4 planets alligned and something with saggitarius constellation? Hopefully some astronomer can answer what’s up.
errr i mean 2012 sorry
I can’t answer your question, but this thread will point you in the right direction, I think.
Well what about astronomy? Can’t we tell the position of planets in future if we know how they move? These calendars are confusing because I do not see the connection between earth and other objects even in terms like geometry never mind the whole sense.
Holy cow, I got cited. How 'bout that. I still plead lack of expertise, though.
As far as astronomical events go, yes, it’s easy to calculate the positions of planets and stars for any given date, and any off-the-shelf (i.e., consumer-oriented) planetarium program can do that.
2012 December 21 happens to be the date of winter solstice that year. No eclipses or great planetary alignments[sup]1[/sup] will occur then; however, the sun will be very close to the intersection of the ecliptic and the galactic equator that day. I’m guessing your question is how to translate all that into English, yes?
Well, I’ll try.
In a very simplified fashion, from the perspective of someone standing outside either a solar system or a galaxy, both of these objects can be visualized as spinning disks, with the only difference being their size. In the case of our own solar system, if we simplify it to just the Earth orbiting the sun, the plane on which the Earth orbits (imagine it as a stylus tracing out a groove in a record) is called the ecliptic plane. To someone standing on Earth, the “rim” of this imaginary record will appear as a curve across the sky, which is called the ecliptic, and it’s the path that the sun, moon, and planets all follow (more or less) in their daily journeys. It’s easy to see how one may get that word confused with eclipse, which is when one heavenly body blocks the view of another body (e.g., when the moon blocks the sun), but they are completely different creatures.
In the case of a galaxy, visualize the stars and solar systems it contains as being laid out on a platter, and the “surface” of this platter is called the galactic plane. To a person on Earth, then, the imaginary rim of the platter that represents our galaxy (the Milky Way) will appear as a different curve in the sky, and it is called the galactic equator. These two curves are fixed with respect to each other and the backgound stars (which make up the constellations), and intersect at two points: one in Sagittarius, and the other at the Taurus/Gemini border.
The reason these two lines are distinct is because the Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted with respect to its orbital (ecliptic) plane[sup]2[/sup], which is itself tilted with respect to the galactic plane. From the Earth’s axial tilt and its orbit, the sun’s position in the sky will change over the course of a year (the ecliptic shifts with respect to the horizon), as will its position relative to the fixed stars (the sun moves along the ecliptic). Because these two curves are fixed, as the sun moves along the ecliptic, eventually it will have to come to the intersection with the galactic equator, and this happens around once every 6 months or so.
So, putting all this together, we see that during the solstice of 2012 December 21, the sun will be near the intersection of the ecliptic and the galactic equator in Sagittarius. Is this a big deal? Nah – remember, these crossings happen every 6 months; what’s to get excited about? But this one’s during the solstice! Uh, so? By running the planetarium simulation, we see that the sun actually crosses the galactic equator on December 20 – one day earlier. It seems to me that if you’re supposed to be excited about something happening on the solstice, it’s supposed to happen ON the solstice, no? Sorry, “very close” isn’t close enough, and weasling it’s “just a day off” isn’t going to cut it, either. But it’s the end of the Mayan calendar! Well, maybe not. Besides the doubts I have as to the apocalyptic associations people tend to associate with the end of calender periods, the thread linked above points out that by some calculations the current Mayan great cycle ends on December 23. Two days later. And not on the solstice. Which is it going to be? You can’t pick dates and force-fit them to some pre-conceived significant grand conjunction, y’know. Sheesh.
Oh, I should add, none of this ire is meant for the OP personally; I just bemoan the dearth of precision in thought in this world. And I certainly mean no disrespect to the Mayans, who had a highly accurate (if confusing) calendar, and apparently the sophisticated astronomical knowledge that it requires. But drop the mush-brained mumbo-jumbo, please.
[sup]1[/sup] According to my planetarium programs, just after sunset on 2012 December 21, the four planets Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune are shown to lie fairly close to the ecliptic; however, given that Uranus wasn’t discovered until 1781 and Neptune until 1846, I doubt that an ancient Mayan calendar would’ve included or predicted their positions.
[sup]2[/sup] To use another analogy, imagine an olive with a toothpick through it resting in a martini glass; the rim of the glass would represent the ecliptic plane, and the toothpick would represent the Earth’s axis, which will be at an angle to the martini glass’s rim.
thanks bro you ve been very helpful. I don’t want to speculate on apocalypsis and what not because I really don’t know. Thanks for clearing the difference between solstice and eclipse. I will look into this more. It’s very hard for me to imagine this right now from 3D perspective in terms of how it would all look in relation to each other (geometry) eg. sun and planetary solstice of 4 planets like pentagram maybe? See what I mean? not the view from earth. I dont want to talk about something I dont know eg. apocalypsis etc…
Umm…solstices and eclipses are different creatures, too. Here are two pretty good explanations and diagrams of what the terms used in relation to the celestial sphere are:
http://inkido.indiana.edu/a100/handouts/celestial_sphere.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/eclip.html
As for visualizing what the sky will look like on 2012 December 21, well, I did two screen-caps of my planetarium program. The location is set for Guatemala City, Guatemala (figuring that’s close enough to the center of ancient Mayan activities), and the time is set for 12 noon:[ol][li]View of the sky from Earth – basically, imagine if you were lying on the ground with your feet pointed south and your head pointed north, this is what the sky would look like straight up.[/li][*]View of the solar system from above – I don’t see any planetary alignments or pentagrammic patterns.[/ol]
Oh, just to be clear in regard to the first image, you won’t actually be able to see any of the stars or planets shown in the chart, because, well, it’s the middle of the day.
These are the views of 3D in 2D, can anyone show a real 3D view on XYZ axis? The second image shows view from the top but planets/objects dont have same orbits to the sun and in relation to each other. Meaning one plant might be below another one or something. Do you see what I mean? I also don’t see earth on second image. What I am looking for is a geometric view in 3D on a plane where solar system is shown from 45 degree angle on that date or something. do u see what I mean?
I know what you mean, but it’s not really needed. All the planets (except Pluto) orbit in the same plane.
Do you mean in this one: View of the solar system from above ? It’s the third one out from the sun. The Earth itself is in the three o’clock postion.
I was talking about this:
i don’t see earth here Would it be one the same path? next to venus above it or below it? left right?
Also I would assume planetary orbits are not completely parallel and have some kind of tilt or angle to the sun right? it would be nice if someone could make a good or at least a decent 3D picture of this solstice like where’s every planet is positioned correctly in relation to sun, other planets and other objects in true 3D or 3d perspective(out of space).
Read what Earthling said about that view. It’s a view from the Earth, so you won’t be able to see the Earth in the picture. 
Nope, you assume incorrectly. The planets (except for Pluto) all orbit on the same plane, like this.
Uurrrghh…you want a 3D view. It’s not really needed, and doesn’t really change things that much, but here you go. While, strictly speaking, it’s true that the planetary orbits are not exactly coplanar, the deviations are small (the term is inclination, and you can see the data here); for most planets, inclination amount to no more than a few degrees, and Pluto is the only planet with a significantly tilted orbit – but with a discovery date of 1930, it’s another body that would’ve been unknown to the Mayans. For all practical purposes, then, it would be a lot more accurate to treat the planets’ orbits as if they are all coplanar than as, say, the proverbial atom with its cloud of electrons swirling in all directions about a nucleus.
As for reading the solar system diagrams, either in my original (top-down) version or the new (perspective) one, the portions of the orbits that lie above the ecliptic are shown in highlighted colors, so you can readily see whether a planet lies above or below the ecliptic at a particular moment. If you viewed the grid edge-on, however, you’ll see that the vertical positions of the planets really don’t vary that much. (The orbits are to scale, in case you’re curious).
I think it will be to your benefit to get a better grasp of visualizing both the sky as seen from Earth and the solar system as seen from outside it. Play around with the Fourmilab’s free online charts: Your Sky is the star chart generator (the observing site probably isn’t critical at this moment, but you can go ahead and type in the latitude and longitude of your home city if you wish), and Solar System Live is the solar system diagram. Plug in the date in UTC format (2012-12-21 18:00 for the date we’ve been discussing), then, well, mess around with all the other boxes and buttons and see what happens.
If you have the bandwidth, I made a 3D animated “fly around” of the solar system view. Download the 4 MB QuickTime file here.
(Much to everyone’s relief, Nott has deleted his frozen Maria Callendar reference.)
For completeness, I’ll note that there’s a variant of the claim that uses the galactic centre rather than the galactic equator. One of the originators of this rubbish, John Major Jenkins, uses the galactic equator to get his supposedly significant event, but also draws attention to the fact that its intersection with the ecliptic is also fairly close to the galactic centre. This, hopefully unsurprisingly, is the point on the galactic equator that points towards the middle of the Galaxy. It’s also in Sagitarius. So it’s true that when the solstice coincides with the galactic equator, the Sun is roughly in the direction of the galactic centre. But quite a few believers in this stuff then seem to have misunderstood Jenkins’s argument (such as it is) and claim that what’s significant about 2012 is that this is when the winter solstice is closest to this point. For example:
What the people advocating this version don’t seem to realise is that the Sun (or equivalently the ecliptic) never actually gets particularly close to the galactic centre. The nearest it gets is about 5 degrees - about 10 times the diameter of the Sun.
I’ll even hazard that, since they’re merely repeating a claim that they misunderstood in the first place, none of them have actually checked when the solstice is closest to the galactic centre. I’m not inclined to do the maths on their behalf, but I’d guess it’s not in 2012.