Kolkata: Noted astronomer D P Durai has dismissed the prediction of the world ending on December 21 as a mere rumour, saying next Friday would be like any other day.
Duari, a NASA educator and director of M P Birla Planetarium, said December 21 would be marked different only because it is a day of winter solstice and the world would not certainly meet its end on that day.
"December 21, 2012 will be another normal day, the only speciality being that it will be the day of winter solstice when sun will be at the southernmost point of the sky and the amount of day time will be the shortest."
Duari noted that doomsday stories had become the centre of discussion around the globe in recent weeks and India was no different, thanks to social networking sites and the Internet.
Explaining the origin of the world-wide buzz, the astronomer said that at the core of this rumour lay a belief by certain people that the ancient Mayan civilisation in Latin America had December 21, 2012 as the last day of their calendar and thereafter the earth's life span would expire.
There are other theories too of how the earth will come to an end on that day, one of them being a devastating collision between the earth and a planet of the yet-undiscovered solar system called 'Niburu', he pointed out.
He explained that there was no scientific basis behind the claim that December, 2012 would have a solar maxima resulting in the reversal of the polarity of the earth's magnetic field.
Another theory that spoke of a rare planetary alignment of earth, sun and the earth's galactic centre thereby causing a huge gravitational instability was also unfounded, Duari said.
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