No, the World Is Not Going to End This Weekend

There are a lot of reasons Caltech physicist Randall Smith didn’t recently announce that a rogue planet named Nibiru is going to destroy Earth this weekend — not the least being that “Randall Smith” of Caltech doesn’t exist. That’s the same reason — the doesn’t-really-exist reason — that NASA spokeswoman Heather Cartwright didn’t publicly confirm the fictional Smith’s findings. And as for Nibiru itself? It ain’t real either. That’s not the way the fever swamps in the more remote regions of the Internet have it, of course. According to the stories bubbling up online, Nibiru is real and it’s a bruiser — a world with 10 times the mass of Earth. NASA has known about it for years but — surprise! — has kept it a secret, according to the make-believe Cartwright. But the jig is up because the planet is on a collision course with our world and the end will come on Sept. 23, or this Saturday. No word if it’ll happen before or after the 3:30 kickoff of the Duke-North Carolina game, but take Duke and give the points just in case. The end-of-the-world theory — despite its high preposterousness quotient — has legs. Google “Nibiru” and “end of the world” and you get 1.27 million hits. NASA, as if it doesn’t have more important things to do, has publicly debunked earlier Nibiru stories. Snopes.com, which gets out of bed in the morning for exac...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized onetime Science Source Type: news