For now, let's forget all the small planets and focus on Jupiter. It makes one complete trip around the Sun every 11.861773 years. There's a new theory put forth by Dr. Rollin Gillespie which shows that Jupiter, and to a smaller degree the other less massive planets, may trigger the 11 year cycle of sunspots and solar flares.

Here's how it works.

The barycenter is not a single point in the Sun. Because the Sun is a rotating gaseous sphere, the barycenter forms a vertical, cylindrical "sleeve" that is partially inside and outside the main solar body. All of the planets have such a "sleeve," one inside the other, depending on their relative mass and the location of their barycenters. The particular sleeve representing the mass of Jupiter intersects the solar surface at 35.9 degrees North and South. This is precisely where sunspot and flare activity begin and end during each 11 year cycle.

The new cycle has already begun with the recent observation of a solar spot with reverse polarity. But some surprising activity on March 27, 2008, showed some huge eruptions with M-class radiation at about the equatorial region of the Sun. [ See Solar Map]. These surprising eruptions suggests a barycenter of disturbance from an object even more massive than Jupiter, placing the "sleeve" outside the Sun. Could this be the beginning of the Galaxy's effects (keep reading to learn more about this) on our Sun?

Scientists have noted that when Jupiter and Saturn are aligned on the same side of the Sun, the solar maximum (the period when we have the most sunspots and flares) is at its weakest; when they are on opposite sides of the Sun the solar maximum is at its strongest. The positions of these two planets on December 21, 2012 are ideal for extreme solar activity.

Above: Position of Jupiter and Saturn on 12/21/2012.

We recently learned that we had overlooked an even more significant alignment that we are presenting here for the first time [Above]. There is a straight-line alignment from Jupiter, the Earth, the Sun and (most significantly) the Galactic Center (a black hole). This alignment happens on December 20th, 2012 -- just a few hours before the actual "doomsday."

These cylinders are usually quite orderly because the planets adhere to a narrow plane, called the ecliptic which resembles a thin plate extending from the equator of the Sun. The planets hang out here because (in simple terms) this is the zone where the gravitation of the system is the strongest. (see below)

The last solar cycle was at its maximum in 2001. Each active solar cycle has a period when the flares are strongest, usually happening near the solar equator, called the "solar maximum." This is significant because the next "solar maximum" event will coincide with December 21, 2012. But wait -- there's much more!

Solar flares are pieces of the sun which leap into space, discharging radiation and strong electrical currents that travel outward into space. They often fall back to the surface of the Sun. Sometimes, a very strong flare, called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), actually leaves the Sun and this deadly mass shoots out from the Sun towards the planets like a bullet. Usually these CME's don't hit anything but occasionally they hit a planet like Earth. Some believe a powerful CME once hit Mars.

Most solar flares are small. But even a small flare can be dangerous. In 1989 a flare hit the North American continent and fried electric lines, zapped power grids in the US and Canada, and created large power backouts. Flares can also effect our moods and physical health. In theory, a large flare impacting the Earth could zap the ionosphere (there goes all the satellites, cellphones, GPS...) and irradiate the surface, killing every living organism that it touched.

Solar flares and sun spots have an average cycle of 11.120412 years (estimated from one "solar maximum" to the next). Right now, 2009, we are just entering the active period of cycle number 24, after an unusually long period of quiet solar activity. This quiet period led some people at NASA to conclude that cycle 24 would be a very quiet cycle -- contradicting the earlier predictions they made for an extremely violent cycle. Now they have redacted their call for a quiet cycle since the activity has again commenced. The scientists who study the Sun have also recently announced that they have measured the solar currents, deep inside the Sun, which correspond the Dr. Gillespie's barycenter currents. But to date they have not been able to agree what causes these deep currents of solar material.

The small discrepancy between the average 11.120412 year solar cycle and the 11.861773 year period of Jupiter is close enough to be significant but suggests that something else is also influencing solar disturbances. Sure, it could be attributed to the various positions of the other less massive planets, but it could also be something even more significant -- the Milky Way.

The Galactic Alignment of December 21, 2012

The Perfect Storm

Our solar system is part of a huge disc shaped collection of stars and planets called the Milky Way. We're located somewhere on the edge of the disc, slightly on top of the narrow disc. But very soon we'll be moving to the bottom of the disc. This change, from top to bottom, begins on December 21, 2012.

Yes, that's right. On the same day when our Sun is at it's solar maximum, something will happen that's never happened for thousands of eons of time -- the ecliptic of our solar system will intersect with the Galactic plane, called the "Galactic Equator" of the Milky Way! [see star chart].

If you imagine our solar system as a bunch of peas on a plate, with a huge meatball in the center, imagine the Milky Way as a city-size pizza with the "Guiness World Book Record Meatball" in its center!

Prior to December 2012 we have been drifting on the top of the pizza, never really able to see the bottom. The plate and pizza are not parallel. They are moving at different angles. We've been drifting down, down, down... and on December 21st, 2012, we will be exactly level with the crust -- forming an "x" at the Galactic Equator where galactic gravity is the strongest. After 2012, if we are still here, we will be passing through the bottom zone, viewing the Milky Way pizza from the South.

Yes, there's even more!

By some amazing coincidence, not only will we be intersecting with the Galactic Equator, but we will be doing this precisely aligned with the center of the Galaxy where there is maximum mass! More mass means more gravity. More gravity means more influence from those barycenters in our Sun. That means exponential increases in solar disruptions -- all coinciding on the same day! Whew!

[Above: The Hercules Cluster of galaxies. This group of galaxies is held together by the gravitational attraction or "pull" of each individual galaxy on the others in the group. This demonstrates the enormous gravity contained in a galaxy, such as our own Milky Way.]

IMPORTANT NOTE: Many people do not understand the alignment of the solar system's ecliptic with the Galaxy's equator. This is because the phenomenon called "the precession" is described as the shifting of background stars due to the "wobble" of planet Earth. In fact, it is not only the planet that wobbles but the entire solar system that wobbles. Many web sites try to debunk the alignment by claiming that it is just the Earth that will be aligned with the Galactic center and equator. They fail to recognize recent discoveries that show that all of the planets move with Earth and the Sun against the background stars -- including one star: Sirius. Some astronomers suggest that Sirius may, therefore, be part of our solar system.

An apology and acknowledgement

OK. This has been a "light weight" description of what's going to happen. It has been simplified to the point where some scholars and scientists could argue about my presentation. But the main facts are true. The date, December 21, 2012, is a special day. It represents the maximum possible influences for solar flares that the universe can provide. Undoubtedly the Mayans, or the civilization that influenced them, somehow knew about these things.

Over the last decade, I have written a variety of stories about such things as underground cities and government actions that could only make sense if there were no future. I cannot help but think that maybe they, like the Mayans, know about these things. I'd specifically like to suggest that readers take another look at the underground complex at Yamantau that the Russians are building. Could this be a haven for surviving a solar blast? And the "doomsday seed bank" that's being filled deep inside an Arctic island. And what about past events? Did the Hopi go underground to survive a similar event thousands of years earlier? Should we be going underground also?

It's also important to stress that December 21, 2012 is only the "solar maximum" but that the gravitational effects of the Galaxy have already started to assert their influence on the Sun. The drift towards alignment with the galactic equator is relatively slow and, in truth, has already started. But the precise culmination of this, plus the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn all make 12/21/12 an onimous date.

I especially want to thank Dr. Rollin Gillespie, a man with whom I corresponded for ten years and who first developed the idea that planetary multi-body systems could be at play in the causation of solar flares. More of his work can be read on a special page on Viewzone. I would also direct your attention to the following two news reports of the discovery of gamma rays coinciding with the Galactic equator (through which we will be shortly passing) and the alarming report that our planet's magentic shield (guarding against, among other things, gamma radiation) has been damaged.You may want to continue reading the second part of this article for more details on what to expect.

Please let's have your input on this important issue. It's only three years away. Who knows, perhaps the influences of these disruptions will begin well before the solar and Galactic maximum is reached. We may not have that much time left. Here are some additional links to stories that may help understand the possibilities facing our planet and us.

Here are some other articles on this subject that you will find very interesting:

We're Not From Milky Way Galaxy - evidence our system is part of a dwarf galaxy that is being "eaten" by the Milky Way.

Will the Mayan Prophecy Really Happen? - an interesting view from Gene Matlock.

Sidereal Time and ESP -- exploring the psychic connection of our Galaxy's center.

Comments:

Physicists Find Evidence For Highest Energy Photons Ever Detected From Milky Way's Equator

(ScienceDaily) - Physicists at nearly a dozen research institutions, including New York University, have discovered evidence for very high energy gamma rays emitting from the Milky Way, marking the highest energies ever detected from the galactic equator. Their findings, published in the Dec. 16 issue of the Physical Review of Letters, were obtained using the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory, a new detector located near Los Alamos, N.M., that allows monitoring of the northern sky on a 24-hour, 7-day-per-week basis.

Gamma rays are considered by scientists to be the best probe of cosmic rays outside the solar neighborhood.

The research team, which includes nearly 40 physicists, reported that Milagro, positioned at an altitude of 8600 feet in the Jemez Mountains, detected a signal along the galactic equator region and interpreted it as arising from gamma rays with a median energy of 3.5 trillion electron-volts, or 3500 times the mass-energy of a proton. Previous satellite experiments have seen gamma-ray emissions along the galactic equator reaching up to energies of only 30 billion electron-volts.

These emissions are understood to be produced by interactions of cosmic-ray particles with the abundant interstellar medium near the galactic equator. Previously, some researchers had speculated that additional mechanisms were needed to explain the large number of particles observed at high energies. However, the measurements by Milagro can be understood by assuming a cosmic ray energy spectrum near the galactic center similar to that in the solar system and the standard properties of particle interactions.

The results presented in the Physical Review of Letters paper were gathered over a three-year period, beginning in July 2000. --end

IMPORTANT UPDATE: January 2009:

Scientists have found two large leaks in Earth's magnetosphere, the region around our planet that shields us from severe solar storms.

The leaks are defying many of scientists' previous ideas on how the interaction between Earth's magnetosphere and solar wind occurs: The leaks are in an unexpected location, let in solar particles in faster than expected and the whole interaction works in a manner that is completely the opposite of what scientists had thought.

The findings have implications for how solar storms affect the our planet. Serious storms, which involved charged particles spewing from the sun, can disable satellites and even disrupt power grids on Earth.

The bottom line: When the next peak of solar activity comes, in about 4 years, electrical systems on Earth and satellites in space may be more vulnerable.

How it works

Earth's magnetic field carves out a cavity in the sun's onrushing field. The Earth's magnetosphere is thus "buffeted like a wind sock in gale force winds, fluttering back and forth in the" solar wind, Sibeck explained.

Both the sun's magnetic field and the Earth's magnetic field can be oriented northward or southward (Earth's magnetic field is often described as a giant bar magnet in space).

The sun's magnetic field shifts its orientation frequently, sometimes becoming aligned with the Earth, sometime becoming anti-aligned.

Scientists had thought that more solar particles entered Earth's magnetosphere when the sun's field was oriented southward (anti-aligned to the Earth's), but the opposite turned out to be the case, the new research shows.

The work was sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation and based on observations by NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) satellite.

How many and where

Essentially, the Earth's magnetic shield is at its strongest when scientists had thought it would be at its weakest.

When the fields aren't aligned, "the shield is up and very few particles come in," said physicist Jimmy Raeder of the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Conversely, when the fields are aligned, it creates "a huge breach, and there's lots and lots of particles coming in," Raeder added, at the news conference.

As it orbited Earth, THEMIS's five spacecraft were able to estimate the thickness of the band of solar particles coming when the fields were aligned ó it turned out to be about 20 times the number that got in when the fields were anti-aligned.

THEMIS was able to make these measurements as it moved through the band, with two spacecraft on different borders of the band; the band turned out to be one Earth radius thick, or about 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers).

Measurements of the thickness taken later showed that the band was also rapidly growing.

"So this really changes our understanding of solar wind-magnetosphere coupling," said physicist Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley, also at the press conference.

And while the interaction of anti-aligned particles occurs at Earth's equator, those of aligned particles occur at higher latitudes both north and south of the equator.

The interaction is "appending blobs of plasma onto the Earth's magnetic field," which is an easy way to get the solar particles in, said Sibeck, a THEMIS project scientist.

Next solar cycle

This finding not only has implications for scientists' understanding of the interaction between the sun and Earth's magnetosphere, but for predicting the effects to Earth during the next peak in the solar cycle.

The Sun operates on an 11-year cycle, alternating between active and quiet periods. We are currently in a quiet period, with few sunspots on the sun's surface and fewer solar flares, though the next cycle of activity has begun.

It is expected to peak around 2012, bringing lots of sunspots, flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). CMEs can interact with the Earth's magnetosphere, causing problems for satellites, communications, and power grids.

This upcoming active period now looks like it will be more intense than the previous one, which peaked around 2006, some scientists think. The reason is the changes in the sun's alignment.

During the last peak, solar fields hitting the Earth were first anti-aligned then aligned. Anti-aligned fields can energize particles, but in this case, the energy came before the particles themselves, which doesn't create much of a fuss in terms of geomagnetic storms and disruptions.

But the next cycle will see aligned, then anti-aligned fields, in theory amplifying the effects of the storms as they hit.

Raeder likens the difference to igniting a gas stove one of two ways: In the first way, the gas is turned on and the stove is lit and you get a flame.

In the other way, you let the gas run for awhile, so that when you add the gas you get a much bigger boom.

"It should be that we're in for a tough time in the next 11 years," Sibeck said.

Cosmic rays have just hit a Space Age high!

ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2009) -- Planning a trip to Mars? Take plenty of shielding. According to sensors on NASA's ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) spacecraft, galactic cosmic rays have just hit a Space Age high.

"In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we've seen in the past 50 years," says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. "The increase is significant, and it could mean we need to re-think how much radiation shielding astronauts take with them on deep-space missions."

The cause of the surge is solar minimum, a deep lull in solar activity that began around 2007 and continues today. Researchers have long known that cosmic rays go up when solar activity goes down. Right now solar activity is as weak as it has been in modern times, setting the stage for what Mewaldt calls "a perfect storm of cosmic rays."

Comments

Hi Dan,

I found your article most interesting, your mention of the previous doomsday of 12,950 BC is accurate, are you aware of the underground cities dug into the earth around 12,950 BC near Cappadocia in Turkey? there are apparently 36 such cities discovered to date, which are up to 21 levels deep; these cities should be among the 7 or 10 wonders of the earth. The incredible thing about these cities are various, they are well ventilated by a system of shafts which seem to have been drilled into the earth, when no modern technology that we know of was available; combined they are capable of accommodating about 720,000 people, and there are no supporting beams or any other mechanism to support the rock ceilings, not only that but some of these cities are interconnected by tunnels some 10 miles long, where 4 people could walk abreast comfortably from one city to another.

Personally I would very much like to visit these cities on a vacation, when I can afford to do so.

Best regards,

John Brain

What makes 2012 significant is that it coincides with the alignment of the center of the Milky Way galaxy, our sun, earth, and the large planets. If it was not for this fact I would say that 2012 was just another Y2K hoax. But the astronomy makes it believeable.

It looks like this gravitational cosmic tsunami could cause the sun to scorch the earth. That means that the only immediate survivors would be people in the underground cities, caves, and submarines. However, even these people may not survive too long because such an event ( gravitational surges ) might bring onearth quakes and volcanic activity, flooding, and the such. These events might collapse underground cities and caves. Huge tidal floods might flood subways on the eastern seaboard.

However, if just a few did manage to survive. They would not be able to come out of their underground dwellings for some time, because the earth's protective magnetic shield may be gone.

If the upper atmosphere and the earth's atmosphere was able to repair itself say in even a short period of time of one year, the survivors would face a barren world. All surface vegetation and animal life will have been destroyed. The surface of earth might perhaps look like a barren planet. The only possible source of food for those few survivors might be the ocean. Plant life and sea life might survive this event to some small degree. However, there is one problem...more than likely all the plankton will die. They live at the surface of the water and will be destroyed by the radiation.

Plankton is the basic building block of life for many living organisms in the ocean. Plankton is the biggest generator of oxygen on the planet. With plankton gone and the forest gone, what is going to provide and create oxygen for the planet?

It doesn't look good for the few that survive 2012. It may very well be the end of the world. Unless, a greater power comes to rescue us. But are we worth it? Man is a miserable creature that kills and destroys himself and other living things.

Johann

Magnetic Somersaults - Other possibilities on December 21, 2012:

In the first quarter of 2001, the Sun switched magnetic poles. This occurs every eleven years. Prior to this the Sun's north magnetic pole was at the north rotational pole. Now the Sun's north magnetic pole is at its south pole. Since opposite poles attract, the magnetic poles of the Earth and Sun are now at their most stable.

Just about the time of 2012 Winter Solstice, the Sun's poles will switch back. During this switch there will be a tendency for the Sun's magnetic field to pull the Earth's field with it.

If the Earth's magnetic poles switch, this would put stress on the planet aggravating earthquakes and volcanos, not to mention destruction of the electrical power distribution grid. And, if the switch happens fast enough don't ever expect your computer to work again. But if you have old tube type equipment, keep it. It should survive just fine. It will work if you can find electricity.

Advice?

Turn off the TV. Turn off the internal voice and the intellect. Don't try to understand it. Feel it. Look around you... your family and friends. Spend your time loving them and enjoying every moment. You can overcome depression by directing your attention outwardly, finding ways to help others -- God only knows the world is full of those opportunities. Try to accomplish something completely unselfish before your life ends. Love is all we have. (But it's enough.)

--Dan Eden / viewzone

A Hopi Elder speaks: "You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered... Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader."

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, "This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time for the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from you attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we've been waiting for."

Hopi Nation - Oraibi, Arizona