Talk to NASA about fictional planets, the end of the world, and maybe what they found on Mars

Whether you’re wondering if Nibiru is real or if the Mayan calendar has anything at all to do with the apocalypse, or whether you just want to chat with wicked smart NASA scientists, your chance is arriving in two days.

On Wednesday, November 28, NASA will be hosting a Google+ Hangout. It’s all happening at 2 p.m. EST, 11 a.m. PST. Participants include:

• David Morrison, astrobiologist from NASA’s Ames Research Center
• Don Yeomans, asteroid scientist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Mitzi Adams, solar/archaeoastronomer from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
• Lika Guhathakurta, heliophysicist from NASA headquarters

The topics of discussion are the 2012 rumors that are proliferating across the Internet. According to the organizers of this chat, December 21 will not, in fact, mark the end of the world.

The official website — yes, NASA actually built an official Beyond 2012: Why the World Won’t End website — is up, as is the list of topic areas on which the scientists will be speaking and answering questions:

• End of the World
• ‘Prediction’ Origins
• Mayan Calendar
• Planetary Alignment
• Nibiru/Planet X/Eris
• Polar Shift
• Meteor Strike
• NASA Science
• Solar Storms

It’s a cool opportunity to chat with top scientists. Even cooler is that there is a field of science known as “archaeoastronomy.”

While I’m glad that NASA says the world is not ending, and 2012 (the movie) has it all wrong, I just have one question: But how do they know?

photo credit: c@rljones via photopin cc