The End of the World
Last updated: 10 January 2012
As we begin the year the Mayans predicted will be our last Adam Walton invites a panel of guests to explore the science of Doomsday.
Broadcast Tuesday 10th January at 7pm
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According to some interpretations of the ancient Mayan calendar, the world ends on 21st December 2012. There's just time, then, for Science Cafe to run through the science behind a few of the Doomsday scenarios which are a regular feature of tabloids, websites and disaster movies. What will finally see off the human race? Will it be a rogue asteroid? A killer virus? Or even flares of electromagnetic radiation from our own Sun?
Joining Adam to play out these particular visions of the End of the World are Jay Tate, Director of the Spaceguard Centre in Powys which raises awareness of the study of Near Earth Objects; journalist and medical historian Mark Honigsbaum who's author of the book 'Living with Enza: The Forgotten Story of Britain and the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918'; and Aberystwyth University solar astronomer Dr. Mario Bisi whose specialism is coronal mass ejections and space weather.
Astronomer Dr. Edward Gomez also joins us to explain that, although 21st December 2012 is the end of their 'Long Calendar', the Mayan's didn't predict that date as the end of the world. He also debunks the idea of Earth colliding with its own 'evil twin', a planet on the same orbit as us which has been hiding on the other side of the Sun.
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