Kepler habitable

Thursday, March 15, 2012

2012, the year the Earth doesn’t end. Again. | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Bad Astronomy

MSNBC interview: 2012, the year the Earth doesn’t end. Again.

I was at the SXSW tech conference over the weekend to be on a panel about 2012 doomsday nonsense. Right after, Helen Popkin of MSNBC interviewed me about this stuff:
[If the video above doesn't load, hit refresh; I've found that happens sometimes and refreshing usually fixes it.]
The panel was fun — I gave an overview to and quickly debunked a bunch of 2012 claims, while JPL scientists Don Yeomans and Veronica MacGregor talked about asteroid impacts, and what NASA is doing to calm unfounded fears about them. Asteroids are indeed a threat, but that danger is routinely exaggerated way beyond reality by lots of folks (YouTube fearmongers, I’m looking atyou). There’s no real danger of the Earth ending in 2012, Mayan calendar-wise or otherwise — but the real danger is the overhyped fear of nonsense.
Forewarned is forearmed. Be aware of the reality of the situation, and save yourself a lot of trouble

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